How The Role Of CIO Will Evolve In 2023

How will the role of the CIO evolve in 2023, and what are the biggest concerns and solutions for CIOs next year? originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.

Answer by Saket Srivastava, Chief Information Officer at Asana, on Quora:

In recent years, CIOs have played an immense role in helping organizations rapidly adapt and transform the way they work through the adoption of new tools and apps to support distributed work models. As CIOs and other IT leaders are faced with ongoing uncertainty and resource constraints, they’ll have to be disciplined about balancing organizational efficiency and long-term growth with responsible tech spend.

CIOs have an exciting opportunity to drive growth over the coming 12 months. It will be critical to prioritize spend toward the most impactful investments, and be comfortable opting out of efforts that don’t move the needle. Successful CIOs will be laser-focused on identifying which investments will be the biggest impact drivers, while enabling teams to remain productive and focused – not just in the year ahead but many years to come.

Tech stacks must also evolve to ensure that employees remain engaged and productive. This will include increased investment in data analytics and AI to support better decision-making, and automation to reduce work about work (the time consuming tasks such as reporting and status updates which currently consumes 58% of employees’ days). Work management platforms that streamline apps, leverage AI, and drive automation will be key to optimizing resources and freeing up employees to focus on high-impact work.

Ensuring organizational security will become an even bigger focus for CIOs. Over the past few years, we’ve seen more apps leveraged across enterprises in addition to new tech integrations, creating further access points for vulnerabilities. With the majority of today’s data breaches caused accidentally by insiders sharing sensitive information, CIOs will also be wise to update their organization’s security practices and invest more in internal security training.

Beyond this, remember that your customers are facing a time of unprecedented uncertainty, and keep a pulse on their evolving needs. One of the single best investments that an organization can make in the coming year is ensuring that employees have the tools to be engaged, efficient, and productive. When teams can focus on work that drives meaningful results, it ultimately trickles down to improved customer experiences and outcomes.

This question originally appeared on Quora – the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.