CIOs face a tough challenge in 2023 as they balance the need for technology investment and the need for fiscal prudence. Business agility is key.
As a Chief Information Officer (CIO), you understand that the success of your organization's IT systems depends on staying current with emerging trends and industry best practices.
That's why we're reviewing TechTarget’s 8 top CIO trends and priorities for 2023 and exploring how the powerful combination of Process Tempo + Neo4j can help CIOs successfully deliver on these trends, helping to drive real progress within their companies in 2023 and beyond.
Trends & Priorities:
Trend #1: Adopting a single technology vision
“CIOs will be increasingly tasked with consolidating tech stacks to improve business performance. Establishing a single technology vision is easier said than done. CIOs will have to work closely with C-level and other business leaders to define which set of technologies -- for cloud environments, ERP systems, business intelligence (BI) platforms and CRM tools -- will be the mainstay of the organization. Legacy and inherited technologies will be integrated into these mainstay technologies.”
Process Tempo + Neo4j can help CIOs consolidate tech stacks to improve business performance in three key ways:
First, the platform itself consolidates numerous critical enterprise data capabilities into a single, centralized unit. It includes modern, graph-based, data warehousing with petabyte scale, true self-service data & analytics access and analysis for non-technical users, embedded workflow enabling low-code/no-code data applications, and integrated governance and control that promotes reuse and consistency. (Learn more about the combination with this post from data expert Phil Meredith - Process Tempo + Neo4j: Accelerating and Expanding the Data Journey >).
Note: Failing to support complex, large-scale data efforts with a centralized capability like Process Tempo + Neo4j no longer makes financial or operational sense for enterprise organizations. Such areas are an excellent place to evaluate the necessity of numerous data-related tools used in these efforts that can be consolidated into a single capability. (Learn more about this concept in Understanding Technology’s Role In Creating Successful Data Cultures):
Second, the platform can be used by CIOs to quickly provide unparalleled levels of both data observability and applied data observability into cloud environments, ERP systems, business intelligence (BI) platforms and CRM tools.
Armed with observability and applied observability, organizations can create a continuously active window that will help them observe, monitor, consolidate, and adapt their approaches toward cloud environments, ERP systems, business intelligence (BI) platforms and CRM tools. It will also allow them to make more informed decisions around which legacy and inherited technologies will be integrated into mainstay technologies.
Note: Not only does Process Tempo + Neo4j provide observability and applied observability, but the solution connects the two together from a technical and business perspective and is further supported by feedback mechanisms to ensure the relationship between the two can continue to evolve, grow and adapt as the organization and its initiatives grow, evolve, and change.
Third, as CIOs will have to work closely with C-level and other business leaders on this effort, the platform can help with this effort as well. With Process Tempo + Neo4j, business leaders can quickly leverage a centralized data-driven workspace that will help align and inform consolidation efforts at large, establishing a foundational single source of truth around the effort.
Trend #2: Preparing for next-gen technology services
“CIOs are laying the groundwork to adopt a variety of promising technologies in different states of maturity, including next-generation analytics. In vetting these new technologies, CIOs will need to consider the potential they offer for cost savings and new monetization opportunities related to offering better customer experiences. But this can be a tricky balancing act. When businesses focus on multiple technology initiatives, they lose momentum and efficiency. The CIO needs to direct the enterprise's resources so that all these technology initiatives are seamlessly interwoven and implemented before they lose their impact.”
“Laying the groundwork to adopt a variety of promising technologies in different states of maturity, including next-generation analytics.”: One of the most effective ways to leverage the Process Tempo + Neo4j platform is to establish it as a foundation or starting point for next-generation graph analytics. Laying such a groundwork often comes in the form of an Analytics Center of Excellence or a Decision Support capability. With this central foundation established within an enterprise, it becomes incredibly easy for business and IT teams to go to this central location and know they can quickly develop, manage, orchestrate, and adapt trustworthy purpose-built data solutions to meet their needs - like helping to create better customer experiences. The ease of development, management, orchestration and adaptiveness takes form in both a technical perspective (in creating a transparent and robust data architecture) and also in a business and process perspective (improving collaboration, connecting people’s processes to data, etc.)
The benefit of establishing a central foundation in this format is that all data initiatives that stem from it are seamlessly interwoven and can be implemented within an organization at scale before potentially losing impact.
“In vetting these new technologies, CIOs will need to consider the potential they offer for cost savings and new monetization opportunities related to offering better customer experiences.”: In the same way CIOs can leverage the platform to consolidate tech stacks, CIOs can also leverage the platform to help them better understand cost-savings and new monetization opportunities. Process Tempo + Neo4j adaptability and foundational component allows you to place an observability + applied observability anywhere where disparate data needs to come together for decision-making. In this instance, the platform can be used to quickly spin a comprehensive vendor or technology evaluation application. CIOs can define their standards and metrics and develop scorecards to quickly determine how well these new technologies can meet their needs.
“When businesses focus on multiple technology initiatives, they lose momentum and efficiency. The CIO needs to direct the enterprise's resources so that all these technology initiatives are seamlessly interwoven and implemented before they lose their impact.” Again, CIOs can leverage Process Tempo + Neo4j to generate a clearer understanding of their enterprise resources and how they relate. With this clarity, CIOs are able to identify the key initiatives that will have the biggest impact. With a clear understanding of available resources, they can ensure that adequate, available resources are focused on those initiatives. And, by creating this clear picture of the dependencies and priorities, CIOs can continuously align the technical strategies with the overall business goals, helping to prevent the potential overlap of initiatives or resources wastage.
Trend #3: Putting cloud costs under a microscope
“The current economic turmoil -- including layoffs and lowered predictions for tech spending -- is spurring CIOs to prioritize cost management initiatives in 2023. Top of the list: cloud spend analysis and ROI analysis. Many CEOs now expect their CIOs to establish a strategy for balancing cloud costs against the benefits of automation. CIOs often find themselves in "the cloud paradox” which refers to the use of cloud to drive agility, scale and resiliency but at the potential expense of profit margins. This is particularly true when businesses embark on their cloud journey without first establishing a cost optimization strategy. But reactionary cost cutting may threaten the most promising innovations. CIOs should clear out waste by identifying unused instances and renegotiating cloud contracts -- and by creating a culture of cloud cost awareness.”
Cloud Spend Analysis: Process Tempo offers several ways to reduce cloud spend for its clients, including identifying and reducing underutilized assets (a.k.a. cloud-right sizing), cleaning up garbage-in garbage-out, and switching licensing models. Learn more about these in our post “Three Easy Ways to Lower Cloud Spend”:
Many companies may also hesitate to move applications or operations to the cloud because the process is a challenging one that could cost them even more. Learn how Process Tempo can help you avoid the common pitfalls of Cloud Migration:
ROI Analysis: As with consolidating tech stacks and evaluating technologies, the Process Tempo + Neo4j pairing can be leveraged to provide unparalleled ROI analysis by:
Providing a holistic view of all the technology initiatives, and the relationship between them, in a single visual representation, allowing for a better understanding of how different initiatives contribute to the overall ROI of the company.
Allowing CIOs to easily track and monitor the progress of individual initiatives and compare their actual performance against their projected ROI. This helps identify which initiatives are delivering the best return and which are underperforming.
Delivering no-code advanced data analysis and manipulation that makes it easy for CIOs to combine financial and technical data to measure the cost, benefits, and ROI of all their initiatives in a location. This should help them to understand which initiatives are the most cost-effective and how to prioritize them accordingly.
Segmenting data and being able to present it in different ways, such as by department, business unit, or geography. In this way, CIOs can see which initiatives are most beneficial for specific areas of the business, and make more accurate, data-driven decisions about where to invest resources.
By consistently maintaining these perspectives, organizations and their CIOs can be better equipped to continuously gain valuable insights into the ROI of their initiatives and use that information to make more informed decisions about which initiatives to invest in and which to cut during times of economic turmoil.
Trend #4: Using the cloud for core business applications
"For the year 2023, CIOs will encourage increased adoption of the cloud for core business applications of CRM, supply chain management, ERP, human resources management systems and other line-of-business applications, which is a change from the cautious approach of years past. At the same time, applications focused on new technology and digital transformation, such as IoT, will increasingly go cloud native, in tandem with a cloud-first mentality for business analytics. The main advantage of moving core business applications to the cloud is the increased visibility of accurate and reliable information about the business presented in a timely, efficient and cost-effective manner.”
We’ve already explained how Process Tempo + Neo4j helps increase the visibility of accurate and reliable information about the business, and how it can be presented in a timely, efficient and cost-effective manner.
What we have yet to discuss is how CIOs must be aware of increasing costs associated with this new cloud-first mentality for business analytics. Working with data within cloud-based applications is often quietly discouraged. This is because cloud consumption-based licensing costs generally run high and usage is complicated to both track and forecast. As a result, bureaucratic processes tend to monitor and lockdown usage of these platforms. With this approach, a great deal is spent on housing data in the cloud, and not nearly as much spent on ensuring that data is being used and applied throughout the organization.
Even if those bureaucratic processes are waived, the cost of using and applying data will soar as these vendors recognize this shift occurring more frequently. But by implementing a platform like Process Tempo + Neo4j that doesn’t license based on usage, users are encouraged to actively access, work with, and apply data across the organization with no compounding cloud costs involved.
Trend #5: Adopting industry clouds to drive product innovation
“Industry clouds are emerging platforms that use preconfigured industry-specific solutions to help enterprises address new use cases faster and with less effort. Industry clouds will help CIOs secure every bit of optimization and innovation they can to improve operations, products and business, despite the uncertainty ahead.”
Preconfigured Industry-Specific Solutions: Process Tempo + Neo4j offer pre-configured industry solutions such as Intelligent Cloud Migration, Supply Chain Control Towers, Customer 360, API Remediation, Product Specification, and more.
Note: Purchasing industry-specific clouds from different vendors may sound like securing optimization and innovation but in reality, it can create compounding issues for the organization.
Process Tempo + Neo4j offers greater flexibility and a more affordable approach to leveraging industry-specific solutions. These solutions are not only as powerful as individual-vendor industry-specific solutions, but because they are flexible and customizable, they can be finely-tuned to fit the needs of each organization.
While a use case like Product Specification has standardized elements, the reality is that each organization is unique when it comes to how people and processes work around product specification. It is this personalization and customization capability that differentiates Process Tempo + Neo4j. And, by keeping these applications within the Center of Excellence provides a more preferable management and orchestration experience of these solutions.
Trend #6: Developing a unified data management architecture
“In 2023, CIOs will need to develop a cohesive data management architecture. A big driver is the increasing assortment of SaaS, PaaS and cloud platforms as enterprises upgrade their technology stack and data platforms. The orchestration of the underlying data is critical to serve the right information to applications, platforms, employees, customers and other constituents.
We expect to see more CIOs developing a cohesive data management architecture that positions the various tools in a modular, optimized and secure fashion to address these use cases. These tools include middleware; traditional extract, transform and load (ETL) and extract, load and transform (ELT) tools; data lakes and lakehouses; messaging applications; reverse ETL; and cloud data warehouses.
CIOs should develop a flexible blueprint in the short- to mid-term, acknowledge the technical debt of fast-moving technology projects and create a remediation plan. "The alternative is an explosion of data silos, out-of-sync applications, a low-trust environment where every fact has to be fact-checked several times and unhappy constituents.”
Developing a unified data management architecture is no small feat for enterprise organizations, and for CIOs it can be difficult to know where to start. Our recommendation is to focus first on creating a unified data governance model.
A unified data governance model attempts to balance offensive data governance and defensive data governance, and in doing so, it provides transparency and a pathway into the structural changes that need to occur to offer the greatest level of control, maintain flexibility, and support the unique needs of your business. This approach allows for the more seamless creation of a more unified data architecture and, has the added benefit of proper governance already being built-in. This approach is far preferable than attempting to build in governance after the fact, or creating a unified architecture from scratch. Learn more about how Process Tempo & Neo4j make it easy to establish a unified data governance approach and understand the benefits, from creating a more connected architecture, to reducing data sprawl, and improving data democratization efforts:
Trend #7: Turning data into products
“Data has traditionally been treated as a commodity managed by centralized IT teams. Increasingly, companies are entrusting business teams that understand where the data comes from to create their own data products. This means the IT department can step back from actively managing the data itself to empower each business unit with the appropriate self-service data provisioning infrastructure."
"CIOs will need to figure out how business teams can securely collaborate using data coming from across other groups. Doing so will mean taking advantage of new architectures, such as data mesh and data fabrics to help automate governance, security, privacy and quality. In addition, emerging data observability tools will help monitor and improve this self-service data infrastructure.”
One of the most impressive and sought-after elements of the combined Process Tempo + Neo4j platform is that it allows business unit autonomy while making it easy to maintain centralized control. The platform allows business units to rapidly produce their own graph-native data products around any given use case. This data product is supported by an accompanying suite of data & analytics observability tools used to continuously monitor, improve, and adapt the self-service data infrastructure. Governance, security, and privacy are all built-in but can be updated to reflect individual needs.
This approach allows the IT department to step back in a big way but still comfortably keep an eye on these business units. This helps to significantly reduce demands on IT to deliver and manage business data solutions and empowers business teams to rapidly leverage out-of-the-box data products that can be finely tuned to support their business needs.
For more on this topic, read our post on “Understanding Technology’s Role in Creating Successful Data Cultures” and how composable applications help empower business-IT fusion teams.
Trend #8: Enabling sustainability with new tech and programs
“In 2023, expect to see the role of the CIO become even more complicated as CIOs are tasked with supporting sustainability initiatives around carbon reduction and supporting circularity. As organizations scale and operationalize their sustainability initiatives, CIOs and tech teams must step up to accelerate progress. This requires CIOs to not only talk the language of business, but also to stitch together solutions across their tech estates to show how they can contribute to an organization's net-zero and sustainability goals. CIOs will increasingly have to vet new apps, analytics, standards and frameworks and, most importantly, sift out speculative hype from industry efforts that deliver meaningful progress on sustainability goals.”
Process Tempo + Neo4j can deliver CIOs a holistic view of all their initiatives related to carbon reduction and circularity, explain how they relate to one another, and help CIOs identify areas of overlap and potential conflicts. For example, a CIO can use Process Tempo + Neo4j to understand the carbon footprint of different departments or operations within their organizations and which initiatives can lower it. They can also track and monitor the progress of individual initiatives and compare their actual performance against their projected impact on sustainability goals.
Regarding circular economy initiatives, CIOs can leverage the platform to quickly identify products that are being over-consumed, materials that are being discarded, or energy being used excessively. Supported with contextual information, they can then find ways to minimize or eliminate those issues, and activate workflows and processes around eliminating these issues.
By building a sustainability-focused control tower with Process Tempo + Neo4j, CIOs can make it easier for themselves to stay up to speed with sustainability initiatives and keep a close eye on how they impact the organization at large.