In today’s world, technology is a core building block of a firm in any industry and there are hardly any functions that do not rely on technology be it customer facing, middle office or a back office functions.

Technology is used everywhere from orchestrating and automating mundane tasks to processing vast amount of data and detecting patterns which can be used to devise innovative products & services, and to strengthening risk management functions. Technology is used to collaborate, to work remotely and to engage customer electronically in a low-touch environment wherever social distancing is feasible. Technology is used to generate and analyze performance matrices in real-time which act as a guiding compass to steer the business in right direction.

With so much reliance on technology, a person in charge of heading this function has to juggle many tasks with competing priorities coming from diverse stakeholders, both internal and external to the organization.

Firstly, technology heads have to ensure availability, reliability, performance and security of existing products in current markets and finds ways to protect and enhance bottom-line performance by continuously optimizing the technology cost of supporting those products.

At the same time, technology units have to partner with their business counterparts in innovating and launching new or better products in existing and/or new markets with a goal to diversify revenue stream with top-line growth.

The third competing priority is the timely and quality execution of all growth and transformation programs including ad hoc compliance and industry regulation mandated projects.

Finally, technology heads have to develop and maintain architecture that supports technical, financial and operational agility to derive maximum business value from the technology investment.

As a CIO or CTO of your organization, are you always working on a fire fighting mode ?

If you want to learn how to walk technology tightrope, please contact our Acuitologist for a non-obligatory, cost-free consultation.