Any size companies and industry need technology to support their business. And these solutions acquisition creates challenges for CIOs
The technology is increasingly incorporated into the companies end activities of any size and segment. They automate processes, ensure improvements and increase productivity, but they also pose IT challenges, such as the need to be aligned with the trends and solutions best suited to your company’s business, as well as acquisition and integration costs, to which are the best on the market. Added to it, they need to raise funds for project integration, a task that is usually the responsibility of the CIO (Chief Information Officer).
IT Investments
The CIO challenge is to prove how much IT is a business tool that will ensure the company’s operations. Therefore, when applying for the investment with the Chief Executive Officer or Chief Financial Officer, (s)he must come up with arguments that demonstrate that (s)he is using the best strategies to ensure the technologies high performance.
The arguments can be based on tangible and intangible issues. For example, cost savings and productivity impact among the company’s subsidiaries by exchanging a conventional telephone system for the IP system; or reducing executive time and travel costs by deploying telepresence systems in remote offices.
Negative diagnostics
Network optimization is also a challenge for CIOs because slowdowns and system crashes are incidents that result in deadlocks, and consequent financial losses. In the face of network failures diagnosis, CIOs need decision-making power and convincing their board to approve strategies that minimize risk and maximize profits.
These diagnostics, which are presented by specialized consultants, can both identify the failure problems source, perform a general analysis, and identify points that are even more vulnerable to network infrastructure, and which have not yet been broken for the time being. With a diagnosis in hand, the CIO is the one who will assess the urgency to correct the critical points. Depending on the complexity degree, it is possible to solve problems in a few hours or a few days, avoiding for example that an incident leaves the ERP stopped, reaching the whole organic function of the company.
As much as this decision has to be endorsed by other boards, the CIO will be provided with reports that justify values to be used. It is still worth reflecting on how much it would cost to wait for the problem to settle for action to be taken.
Among the IT benefits are support for product development, invoice issuance, sales, production, in short, all the action in process management. And the CIO’s up-to-date view on the technologies that are right for your business, as well as the improvements that must be made, will make a difference to your company’s competitiveness.
Team NapIT
