5 Crucial Issues Today’s CIOs Can’t Afford to Ignore
AI has quickly and completely changed the way we look at and use technology. Enterprises, led by their CIO and other technology officers who see its potential, need to find a way to get the most out of AI. Ensuring enterprises are secure is also a key concern, along with managing new technologies and the vendors that come with it. IT executives of multi-location enterprises face unique challenges as they look to benefit from new solutions and tools powered by AI. CIOs and their teams have limited resources to address the many issues vying for their attention and must make the most out of their investments in new technologies. While the size of the enterprise, the size of the IT department, and the enterprise’s industry all determine how these issues will make an impact, it’s important to be aware of the most common critical issues facing CIOs and their teams today.
1. Taking a Reasonable Approach to AI
Although AI has been available to enterprises for several years, the rise of AI tools like Chat GPT has prompted IT leaders to make finding value in AI a priority and maximize its capabilities to improve the way an enterprise operates, including helping with productivity, market research, or decision-making. CIOs play an essential role in educating others in their organization about AI and must stay on top of new developments while setting reasonable expectations about what AI can do for their workplace. AI, including generative AI, is not an all-purpose tool to address pain points. As a “human augmentation tool,” AI works best when it assists people with tasks, rather than completely replacing them.
2. Ensuring Security
While AI tools have the potential to transform the way an enterprise does business, it falls on CIOs to help determine how to best apply them and help mitigate the accompanying risks. When implementing AI, enterprises must ensure that AI tools are accurate, free of bias, and transparent. It is also imperative to focus on ensuring that data is secure, especially as hackers and ransomware agents are becoming increasingly sophisticated with their attacks. Without proper security in place, the rise of remote work also leaves enterprises and their data more vulnerable. Ultimately, CIOs must be the ones to implement new solutions and team-wide training to combat these issues and keep data safe.
3. Managing Multiple Vendors
As the number of providers for IT solutions continues to grow, CIOs must find ways to handle the multiple vendors and contracts that come with them. In addition to relieving the burden by seeking out multiple solutions from a single vendor, CIOs must also understand that an enterprise is sometimes only designed to handle internal operations, and not many different providers. Vendor management practices must be put in place, including building collaborative, proactive relationships that involve vendors in key decision-making sessions.
4. Spending Less
Technology affects all facets of today’s modern enterprises. Because of this, the focus on innovation spending as well as overall spending on IT is top of mind for CIOs. This is a difficult task, and CIOs must aim to replace legacy technologies that may be wasting money as they look to modernize systems and streamline operations. It is especially important to identify inefficiencies that may have popped up during the last few years, when growth and investment were at a high.
5. Creating Value Through Technology
For many CEOs, new technology is an indispensable part of their business. According to a 2024 Deloitte/Fortune CEO survey, 57% of CEOs plan to grow by incorporating new technologies into their business models. As a response to this, CIOs have taken a proactive, product-centered approach that seeks out technology that will be disruptive rather than incremental. This way, solutions can be implemented before they’re irrelevant and provide IT departments with the tools they need.
As a global managed services provider, AireSpring offers a comprehensive product suite that includes Managed SD-WAN, SASE, security, as well as traditional internet, voice, and data services—keeping pace with rapidly evolving technologies. With award-winning customer support, AireSpring enables multi-location enterprises to reduce vendor sprawl, consolidating technology management through a single supplier, with one bill, one vendor, and one point of contact. AIreCONTROL, AireSpring’s secure, AI-powered IT Service Management (ITSM) platform, delivers 360-degree visibility and control across all processes, devices, circuits, and data points, with access to AIrePOD Tier 3 Engineering support—simplifying IT, strengthening security, and optimizing operations.
