10 things keeping IT leaders up at night

CIOs are hardly Luddites, but even some technologists fret about artificial intelligence, the rapid pace of tech evolution, and their ability to keep up.

That’s not to say they’re looking to ditch their roles or smash machines, as the real Luddites had.

Yet CIOs do admit that they’re worried about multiple issues these days. Here are 10 worries keeping IT leaders up at night.

1. Cybersecurity risks

This one is no surprise, given the scary statistics on the growing number of cyberattacks, the rate of successful attacks, and the increasingly high consequences of being breached.

Recent figures do nothing to ease anxiety. The September Monthly Threat Intelligence Report from cybersecurity firm NCC Group delivers plenty of reasons to worry. For example, it highlighted a 153% rise in global ransomware attacks from September 2022 to September 2023. And it called out a 76% increase in the quantity of double extortion ransomware groups between these time periods, adding that the number suggests “that the interest in ransomware for profit is by no means dwindling.”

Given that reality, is it any surprise that CIOs are worried about breaches and hacks?

“It seems to be an increasing worry — worry over whether the enterprise is secure and its data is protected, because everything else falls to the wayside if that’s not taken care of first,” says John Buccola, CTO of E78 Partners, which provides consulting and managed services in finance technology and other professional areas.

Even CIOs working at organizations that have CISOs to oversee security aren’t spared here, Buccola has found. “If there’s a breach, there is shared ownership; it’s still all-hands-on-deck, and everyone is responsible for the response,” he says.

2. AI fallout

It doesn’t take a data scientist to predict that AI would be on this list. After all, even industry leaders have raised alarms over AI, warning that the technology poses an existential threat to humanity.

Although some CIOs may harbor such fears, others say their concerns are around more immediate, and much more pragmatic, considerations.

The Society for Information Management (SIM) recently conducted its annual trends study and found that nearly a quarter of the IT leaders polled listed AI and machine learning as an area of concern, says SIM CEO Mark Taylor.

Those CIOs aren’t expressing fear about the future of humanity, Taylor says. Rather, they’re stressed about how AI will impact their own organizations. They’re wondering how AI technologies, such as ChatGPT and generative AI in general, will increase risks. They’re questioning whether they’re implementing adequate safeguards and whether they’re seizing on the right opportunities to use these technologies.

“All that puts a lot of pressure on CIOs,” Taylor says.

To top it off, Taylor says many CIOs report having CEOs, C-suite colleagues, and workers throughout their organizations clamoring for the technology and even launching their own pet projects using the tech, further upping the stress.

3. Tech debt

Tech debt may well be the monster lurking in the closet, and another issue that keeps CIOs up at night.

A 2023 study titled “Embracing modernization: From technical debt to growth,” from DXC Leading Edge, sheds some daylight on the creature. The tech company surveyed 750 IT executives and found that only five respondents did not list tech debt on their risk registers. It further found that the others recognized “that tech debt limits an organization’s ability to adapt to change.”

The report continued: “These pockets of outdated tech, code, practices, or ways of working are obstacles in other ways as well. They block the path to innovation.” The report noted that 46% of IT executives said they “very often encounter restrictions” or that “tech debt has a dramatic effect” on their organization’s ability to pursue digital transformation and growth.

The worry is the IT environment being too brittle, with little or no ability to scale and to support evolving business requirements and modern application needs, says John Cannava, CIO at Ping Identity, a provider of security software.

Authors of the DXC Leading Edge report acknowledged the fear factor, saying “any executive’s blood runs cold to think that 20% to 40% of the value of their entire tech estate before depreciation may be tied up in technical debt.”

4. IT unknowns

Meanwhile, many CIOs are troubled by a similar, related issue — a lack of full knowledge of and visibility into what they have in their IT environments.

“It’s not knowing what you don’t know,” says Laura Hemenway, president, founder, and principle of Paradigm Solutions, which supports large enterprise-wide transformations.

Many IT departments lack strong documentation around their code, processes, and systems, says Hemenway, who also serves as a fractional CIO and is a leader with the Arizona SIM chapter. Additionally, they don’t know all the places where their organization’s data lives, who touches it, and why.

“CIOs went through so much so quickly in the past few years, that there is no transformation project that’s not full of data unknowns, process gaps, broken interfaces, or expired programs,” she says, calling them “all ticking time bombs.”

“And unless CIOs take the time to create a solid foundation, this is going to be pulling at them, rolling around in the back of their head,” she says.

5. The economy

There’s another unknown that has some CIOs a bit spooked: the economy.

Surveys show a mixed executive outlook, indicating a level of uncertainty about what to expect. And CIOs are feeling the effects of that.

For example, Antonio Taylor, vice president of infrastructure, services, and security at Transnetyx and marketing chair for SIM’s Memphis chapter, says he’s dealing with the impact of inflation. Costs for products and services that had seen annual rate increases of around 3% for years are now jumping upwards of 10% or more.

“Obviously you want to negotiate for better rates, but I also believe you get what you pay for,” he says, noting that “we don’t have a timeframe for when price increases will start to even out.”

That has CIOs like Taylor up late, thinking about their budgets, reconsidering priority lists, and making sure they’re not overextended.

“Every CIO is struggling, trying to get increased budgets,” adds Nitish Mittal, a partner at Everest Group, a research firm.

He notes that many CIOs had acclimated to looser purse strings in recent years as companies invested heavily in digital programs to survive COVID-related disruptions. Consequently, today’s demands for tighter spending can be a bit jarring, he says.

6. Keeping pace with business needs

Those economic-induced worries, and the corresponding (and seemingly perennial) pressure to do more with less, come as CIOs are working to keep up with an ever-increasing pace of evolving business needs.

Bobby Cain, senior vice president and CIO, North America, at Schneider Electric, acknowledges the anxiety that such pressures can produce.

“What keeps me up at night is solving those business problems,” he says. “When you look at Schneider Electric and our growth, it is hypergrowth. It is transformational growth. But what got us to where we are is not what’s going to get us to where we want to be. That’s not just from a systems landscape but across the entire IT environment — from data to how we’re structured to the percentage of budget we spend on IT. And it’s about having that balance between keep the lights on and innovation spending. That’s what really concerns me.”

He’s not alone in such feelings, as most CIOs now are expected to deliver top-line value. CIO.com’s most recent State of the CIO report found that 85% of CIOs agree that the CIO is becoming a changemaker, increasingly leading business and technology initiatives, and 83% said they’re committed to transformation work.

Although such high expectations may be stressful, Cain puts a positive spin on the situation, calling it “constructive paranoia.”

He explains: “The paranoia is, I don’t want to be the obstacle; I don’t want to be the one preventing us from achieving that.”

That, Cain adds, is also a powerful motivator.

7. IT credibility

Similarly, many CIOs still worry about their credibility and the perception of IT and IT leadership, says Taylor, the SIM CEO.

“COVID pushed tech to the forefront and everyone said, ‘Oh yeah, we need these guys. They’re important.’ That situation gave budget and credibility to everyone in IT. But that success also raised expectations,” Taylor says.

But IT — like the rest of the world — is in a different place today, he adds.

CIOs and IT staffers worked crazy hours at the start of the pandemic to digitally transform. They can’t — nor should they be expected to — work that schedule all the time. Yet some business colleagues still expect the same rapid turnaround on new functions and features.

That expectation, and the inability to meet it, can leave CIOs a bit unsettled, Taylor adds.

Everest Group’s Mittal cites a related issue that takes up a lot of CIO headspace: the need to know something about everyone else’s job.

“CIOs now have to be polyglots; they have to know multiple languages,” he says.

Forget just speaking the language of business, he explains. CIOs today are expected to do that and speak the language of finance, HR, marketing, operations, supply chain, and so on.

Granted, CIOs don’t need to master all those roles and languages, Mittal says, but they do need to know enough to understand the OKRs and KPIs in each area and how technology initiatives can move them in the right direction.

8. Future-proofing today’s IT decisions

Another issue that has some CIOs burning the midnight oil: devising a technology plan with some longevity.

Ping Identity’s Cannava says he and other tech execs have seen the shelf life of many technology investments drop precipitously, as innovations can make what were stellar solutions at the time of purchase seem nearly obsolete when a disruption hits.

Consequently, Cannava says he and other CIOs worry more about “future-proofing decisions.”

He asks: “How do you make a selection knowing that the technology will change quickly — possibly in the next six months?”

Of course, CIOs have long felt the pressure to make smart technology bets. It’s just now, the calls come faster and the stakes are higher.

“We have to race to implement but at the same time we have to make sure we get value out of it,” Cannava says. “But all of us CIOs are going to have to get used to this shorter evolution cycle.”

9. Tough competition for IT talent

Although there have been some layoffs among tech workers, unemployment in this space is just 2.2% — lower than the overall national unemployment rate of 3.8%.

Kumud Kokal, CIO of Farmers Business Network, says figures like that keep his mind spinning. Like many IT execs, Kokal knows the importance of getting and keeping top talent. He focuses on providing competitive compensation, training opportunities, and career pathways.

Still, he says, it’s a worker’s market for technologists.

“Maybe we won’t get as crazy as we were a few years ago with all the hiring, but I think the talent market will heat up,” he adds.

10. Ensuring operational excellence amid transformation

All the challenges, worries, and anxieties that come with today’s digital era are in addition to — not in place of — the need to keep the proverbial lights on.

“It’s not that the worries about the basics have gone away. As CIO you still worry about keeping the lights on. We do not want to send the message that we’re moving away from that core responsibility,” Cain says.

In fact, Cain says the digital era has upped the ante on that core mission. For example, his company now moves 24 terabytes of data a minute. At the same time Cain’s working to create greener IT operations in support of his company’s sustainability objectives.

It all means, he says, “we have to be manically focused on the blocking and tackling.”