Years ago, the CIO in most enterprises were always on the outlook for any hidden projects or investments taking place within the business that had not obtained their approvals and controls. This might have started with a new email software, monitoring social media, or big data storage to name a few of the recent investment trends. Today’s CIO is required to view things in a new light, accelerating the change in the business rather than controlling it.

Alignment across the business is critical to succeed and help the business move forward in an innovative and proactive manner for today’s marketplace. As a result, the CIO should be a colleague rather than a competitor to the other organizations that have technical investments, from human resources and finance to sales and marketing. The startup innovations are in all categories and target audiences, therefore the trials, evaluations and budget requests might come from multiple organizations and divisions in the business. As predicted by Gartner, the CMO will spend more on IT Investments than the CIO. This trend aligns with the sales strategies from startups who would prefer to sell into the line of business or any other organization than the CIO where the scrutiny, restrictions and evaluations are the greatest.

Investment strategies are changing for the CIO as well. Due to the new innovations and solutions provided, the previous TCO models and one time investment analysis is not the only way to make decisions and track metrics. In order to stay relevant and competitive, ongoing analysis, information and investments are required. We saw this in the past with the diversification of vendors in the networking space, and this has multiplied in the software and app environment of today. How often do you change your IT assets and software investments?

This observation of the change will have continued effects on markets, budgets and planning. It presents opportunities to the providers as well as the customers who will experiment and use the new technology and trends. Will you change the way you evaluate the CIO priorities in the next year?