The future of technology requires radical thinking, but as IT leaders act on a multitude of ideas to enhance their organisations, new data released today from SPR shows that some strategies will fare better than others in 2022 and beyond.
The report, titled The 2022 Technology Leadership Forecast, surveyed 400 US technology professionals, director level and above, from various industries and dives into what leading organisations are doing differently than their peers. The insights reveal the key characteristics that can elevate an IT organization to achieve its goals and become partners to the business.
According to the report, cybersecurity will continue to be a major factor in not just technology strategy, but business strategy. However, the data shows even leading companies are seeing a potential disconnect between IT priorities and company dollars. More than half of leading IT organisations ranked cybersecurity as their top priority, with 58% listing it as the most important area for training and skills development–but it ranked fourth for fund allocation. Additionally, only 25% of respondents indicated that cybersecurity was in the top three initiatives companies were putting money towards in 2022.
“Our data shows that security is no longer just an IT issue, but rather, a business issue,” says Matt Mead, CTO at SPR. “As new threats emerge each day, training and skills development in the area of cybersecurity is critical to securing both the employee and user experience, especially as remote work drives the need for security to expand beyond the office walls. But moving forward, more resources will be needed to ensure teams are equipped with the right tools to detect and navigate certain threats.”
The report also shows that leading IT organisations are becoming more business-minded, searching for new business opportunities and expanding revenue streams. When asked to rank their top priority as an IT executive, IT leaders said “identifying new business opportunities” was number one, whereas “follower” respondents listed the same initiative as number 12.
Other key findings from the report show that leading IT organisations:
• Recognise the value of the customer and user experience, with 59% of IT leaders saying their organisation is extremely effective at responding to customer (user) needs in a timely manner.
• Create new business opportunities, with 57% of IT leaders strongly agreeing that the technology organisation is integral to developing new products and streams of revenue.
• Implement creative solutions to recruiting and retaining talent, with 68% of IT leaders leveraging top talent to inform tech strategy and execution and empowering their employees to grow with the organization.
“Leading IT organisations are doing things differently,” says Mead. “Whereas lagging IT organisations are focused on the implementation of technologies, leading IT organisations place a higher priority on expanding business opportunities and revenue streams. In addition, our findings show that cybersecurity, retaining top talent, and providing an unmatched user experience are what set leading IT organisations apart from their competitors.”