The figure of the CIO is gaining more and more relevance in the definition of the corporate strategy of companies. The IT manager has gone from being linked mainly to IT management to having a central role in the growth of the business through the introduction of technologies that can favor innovation in products and services.

Its role has therefore become strategic within the organization, and its function as a driver of innovation is of vital importance to the bottom line. This revolution is reflected in the data, as 38% of CIOs now spend at least 30% of their time innovating.

The key to improving the bottom line lies in their ability to get innovation right. Among the functions of the CIO are some as relevant as leading the digital transformation of the company, accompanying and guiding department directors, acting as advisor to the CEO or managing talent and leading cultural change.

But, What are the three issues of most concern to Spanish CIOs? According to a study conducted by Penteo, a consulting firm that recently brought together more than 80 IT executives at its ‘Annual Meeting 2022’, the three biggest concerns for this profile are the search for talent, cyber-attacks and data-driven companies.

The three challenges

José Luis Pérez de Tejada, chief analytics officer at Penteo, spoke about the talent shor tage at the opening of the company’s CIO Annual Meeting 2022. In his opinion, “the most difficult to achieve is Analytics and Data Science”. “The soft part is a weakness of the teams and resources are lacking. Also, there is a low level of technical knowledge,” he added.

Regarding cyber-attacks, the consultancy already included it as one of the main concerns of Spanish CIOs, even before the conflict in Ukraine broke out. “Cybersecurity is gradually regaining the focus that it had not been given years ago and certain messages are taking hold when it comes to establishing a culture of cybersecurity in companies, although formalized regulatory frameworks based on standards or best market practices such as ISO27001, 27002, etc., should continue to increase,” they point out in the report. Digital Trends Lansdcape.

As for data-driven companies, i.e., those that make strategic decisions based on data analysis and interpretation, Penteo’s research shows that data has become the main asset of companies, and that 94% of them consider them a strategic asset.

“The challenge, however, is to really treat it as such, offering differential value to those organizations that are able to process them and turn them into value through advanced analytics and artificial intelligence techniques,” they conclude.