5 questions to test tech resilience and build a 90-day action plan

Major events demand quick reaction from companies. That means having the agility in your technology estate to respond at a pace to circumstances few companies will have experienced before. The unprecedented speed of tech evolution, ongoing geopolitical instability, and the constantly shifting landscape of trade agreements are just some of the recent dynamics that many companies have had to adapt to. The most successful organizations are the ones that can effectively respond to macro events, whether that’s shifts in regulation, tech developments, supply chains, or realigned market access.

In recent research from Accenture, 63% of C-suite executives said they were planning to reinvent their organization’s IT function over the next three years. And this is in the context of a business environment that feels like a perma-crisis. With everything at stake, CIOs face major opportunities wrapped in complex challenges.

Building technology resilience today requires more than keeping systems running. It’s about concentrating capability where it matters most, so core operations remain secure, adaptive, and strategically aligned. So here are five critical questions CIO’s should ask themselves to gauge their tech resiliency and shape the rest of their 2025 agenda, as well as corresponding 90-day action plans to help gain the agility to respond to critical business priorities.

1. How am I tackling tech debt in the age of AI?

The convergence of AI with existing systems has brought technical debt into sharp focus. While AI, and agentic AI in particular, presents transformative opportunities, it also exposes the limitations of legacy systems and architectural decisions made in the past. It’s essential to balance the excitement of AI adoption with the pragmatic need to address underlying technical debt, as we explored in our recent research.

90-day action plan:

• Conduct a comprehensive technical debt assessment focusing specifically on systems that could impede AI integration or limit your agility.
• Develop a prioritization framework that weighs the impact of technical debt against AI implementation opportunities.
• Create a roadmap to modernize critical systems in your digital core that’ll serve as the foundation for AI initiatives.
• Establish metrics to track technical debt reduction progress and its impact on AI deployment capabilities.

2. Are my AI activities getting beyond proofs of concept?

While AI enthusiasm runs high, successful implementation requires careful focus on use cases that deliver tangible business value. CIOs must lead their organizations in identifying and executing AI initiatives that drive meaningful outcomes. That means defining AI programs with an holistic, end-to-end vision of how they’ll deliver value for your business. And it means taking a platform approach, as opposed to numerous isolated PoCs.

90-day action plan:

• Rapidly assess how AI will deliver value at each stage of a process, and then build that into a full picture of value.
• Create an AI value assessment framework that considers both quantitative and qualitative benefits. Then use this to reinforce your AI foundation to ensure you have the systems, tools, data, and processes to support long-term growth and enable teams of AI agents.
• Identify three to five high-impact use cases that align with business priorities, and build a scaling plan for successful pilots.

3. Am I transforming IT operations into enterprise operations?

The traditional boundaries of IT are dissolving. With technology now fundamentally driving business strategy, CIOs must lead the evolution from an IT operating model to a new business technology operating model. Recent data shows organizations that have embraced this transformation achieved 15% higher top-line performance compared to their peers, with potential for this gap to double by next year.

90-day action plan:

• Map current technology capabilities against enterprise-wide strategic objectives.
• Define a digital products approach, focusing on time to market of new functionalities, and map the capabilities and platforms across products.
• Identify key stakeholders across all business functions and establish regular collaboration forums.
• Develop a skills matrix detailing the technical and business capabilities needed across the organization.
• Launch pilot programs to explore how AI agents can automate dynamic tasks without supervision, particularly in areas such as development, security, and operations (DevSecOps). Focus on improving productivity to offset margin headwinds.

4. Have I fully embraced a products and services model?

Many companies have partially shifted from project-based to product-oriented IT delivery; organizations should fundamentally reorganize how they work to make this the default. This transformation requires new organizational structures, funding models, and ways of working that better align with business outcomes. This will help you treat the digital products as mini-platforms with full lifecycle management.

90-day action plan:

• Select two to three high-impact areas to pilot persistent, cross-functional product teams.
• Map what those projects need to what you need to enhance in your digital core, with a focus on shared capabilities.
• Define and implement initial product-centric metrics focused on business outcomes.
• Reinforce the culture around this approach with your people to turn it into business as usual.

5. How strong are my ecosystem partnerships?

In today’s complex technology landscape, no organization can succeed in isolation. Strategic partnerships have become essential for innovation, scale, and competitive advantage, so CIOs need to take a leading role in cultivating and managing these crucial relationships.

90-day action plan:

• Look beyond just technology when it comes to partnerships. Consider financial models, using your balance sheet or collaborating with your partners, which can accelerate automation and release cost savings in year one.
• Assess your current partnership portfolio against your strategic objectives, with a focus on data sovereignty.
• Identify gaps in ecosystem capabilities that could be filled through new partnerships.
• Develop a partnership governance framework that includes regular value assessment to measure partnership effectiveness and value creation.

A Critical Window for Taking Action

The next six months present a critical window for CIOs to position their organizations for success in an increasingly tech-driven business environment. By focusing on these five themes and executing the recommended actions, CIOs can identify where they need to reinforce the foundations of their tech estate. The key isn’t just understanding these imperatives, but ensuring you have agility in your organization to respond to them with a future-proof business operating model.