Top IT Pains of 2016

June 8th, 2016 by admin

Some are old and some are new, but pain is in the air for most CIOs. Knowing what's hurting your organization can give you a good sense of your organization's overall health. Solve your biggest challenges and your organization should have a bright future. Ignore them, and your biggest challenge will probably exasperate into an organization-wide mess.

These are the top 10 challenges of 2016 based on Society of Information Management (SIM) annual survey. Read on to see which pains match your list and find out which challenges your organization succeeded in avoiding.

1. Aligning your IT with your business

Understanding your organization's goals and future plans is the first step to finding the IT that aligns with your organization. After that, it is easier to strategically implement solutions that'll make a material difference. Finally, your IT can help you discover new business insights, create better customer experiences, increase your efficiency or find you plain, old cost savings.

2. Security and privacy

This one will probably never go away. Almost a third of respondents said security/privacy was their top IT management issue for 2016.

3. Speed of IT delivery

When you are finally set on a new solution, the delivery speed is still a problem. The deployment process can include a plethora of frustrations: upgrade/install wait times, poor partner communication and unexpected expenses. New solutions should meet your expectations and it all starts with choosing a partner that understands your needs.

4. Innovation

Surprised to see this on the list? Us either, and it's one of our favorite topics.

5. Productivity

Recognize the areas that need upgrades, then do it. Maybe it's not that simple, but there are always a few tips to help out every employee on their efficiency.

6. Value of your IT

Ever heard the phrase "do more with less?" What it really means is a juxtaposition; you are looking to spend less time and money, but gain more tools, features and results. That's why choosing your technology carefully has a powerful impact on your organization's bottom line.

7. IT Flexibility

This is another topic that takes careful consideration and a strategy. To build a strong foundation, you'll need the right mixture of features in the format that works for everyone from Jim in the finance department to the Sharon in the customer service department.Hybrid solutions might be able to help you on this mission.

8. Lowering IT Costs

If your organization is not concerned about lowering costs, consider yourself lucky. There are millions of IT departments in all industries looking to reduce their budgets and/or staff. This could help give you some ideas.

9. Business Agility

The way you do business should be able to change based on your clients' needs. One of the most simple solutions to this is enabling your clients and internal contacts to be able to reach you any way they want and when they want.

10. Lowering Business Costs

Again, you are a lottery winner if this one does not include your organization. Every area of savings matters, whether it's avoiding the disasterous costs of an outage or saving with a smart initial investment.

CONCLUSION: One review of this list suggested that "CIOs need to stop being 'concerned' about the same things year after year. There are steps that companies can take to exploit the incredible business technology trends and efficiencies we've seen over the past ten years. The focus should be on business technology integration, not 'alignment' or whining about how hard it is to define the business value of IT," Steve Andriole, Forbes Contributor. Resources:

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