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Using state-of-the-art technology is essential when trying to grow a small business. Every year, businesses in the United States spend nearly $690 billion on technology. Staying on the cutting edge of technology is much easier when you hire a chief information officer (CIO) for your company.
But what if you are hired as the CIO by an organization? How do you, as a CIO, help an organization to stay ahead of the curve? To begin with, one of your top priorities would be to stay “in the know” about the latest technologies that are available in the market. This way, you can ensure that employees working for your company are provided with the best tech tools to work with.
This is just one of the many challenges that are faced by a CIO. There are various other challenges that a CIO has to face, some of which have been discussed below.
1. Keeping Up with New Security Threats
Every time you turn on the news, you get to hear stories on another large corporation being hacked. There is no denying that cybercrimes are becoming more sophisticated with each passing day. The complexity of the hacking methods used in today’s digital landscape are hard to detect. This means that CIOs will need to do their homework when it comes to the latest cybersecurity threats in the market.
Most experts agree that 2019 is the year of AI-powered cyber attacks. These attacks can be particularly damaging because an AI program has the capability to learn and mutate. This is why investing in things like infrastructure monitoring is so important. With a bit of online research, you can learn about all about infrastructure monitoring.
Most important of all, working with other IT professionals is the best way to put the right network safeguards in place to ward off these attacks.
2. Dealing with the Skills Gap Issue
Some of the tech-driven companies believe in hiring the best employees to run their business. When it comes to job search, top-notch college graduates with degrees in computer science and electrical engineering and those from the brightest college graduates will eventually prefer joining big tech companies like Google or the United States Government over the rest.
This means that small and mid-sized businesses will have to hire from the remaining pool of talent. In some instances, the individuals hired will lack the skills needed to do the work a company needs. Instead of just writing these individuals off, a CIO should try coming up with a comprehensive and detailed onboarding process. With a great onboarding process, you can do your part trying to closing the divide between the skill set that a new employee has and what your company needs.
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3. Addressing Multi-Cloud Security Issues
As more and more companies embrace the power and convenience of remote workers, CIOs will scramble to make cloud-based networks more secure. Often, a large-scale business firm may have several cloud-based networks and software programs to manage. Each of these elements need to be properly secured and that can be extremely difficult.
The best way to keep these platforms secure is by using cross-cloud security tools. As any experienced CIO knows, the security needs of a company can change at the drop of a hat. Therefore working with agnostic security platforms is ideal when securing the new tools that a business implements.
4. Pulling Off Digital Transformations Can Be Difficult
Outdated technologies are a serious challenge for companies. If a business has to undergo a complete digital transformation, a CIO will need to plot out every detail of this change. While this may sound like a relatively easy task, it is anything but that. Indentifying the right tools and the network capacity needed to make them work can be extremely difficult.
Not only will you have to create a digital transformation plan of attack that works, but you will need to stay on the budget as well. The best way to pull off this daunting task is by hiring the right team to help you out. Trying to do this work alone is a recipe for disaster. It is also important that you talk with the owner of the business about hiring additional IT staff is vital.
Before hiring employees to help you with your ever-increasing IT workload, you need to take some time to ensure they have the experience and credentials you are looking for.
Rising to Meet New Technology Challenges
As time goes by, you will become more familiar with the tech needs of your company, which will help you make complex decisions with ease. It takes a very special type of person to be a great CIO. Your main goal in this position should be becoming a problem solver.
