PERSPECTIVES

How CTOs are adapting to the new business landscape

How CTOs are adapting to the new business landscape
November 1, 2021  |  BY

If we look at the history of business, innovation around technology has always been about responding to current conditions. It’s no different with the COVID-19 pandemic. CTOs and CIOs have been forced to re-imagine how technical capabilities can serve both workers and customers in this remote world we’re living in.

With many employees having to use their own devices to access secure networks, companies faced new security challenges. To adjust, we’ve seen wide deployment of an agile security strategy. Organizations were able to shift hundreds, even thousands, of employees to a remote environment in a few days without missing a beat.

And since any security strategy must be adaptable, many IT leaders are taking a DevSecOps approach. In this way, security becomes a shared responsibility in the organization, and isn’t just a responsibility of the technical teams. At the same time, an automation component ensures testing, validation, and recovery processes. While DevSecOps can involve significant resources of time and money, the approach ultimately strengthens network security.

When there’s any type of chaos, or disruption of the norm, it’s natural to experience significant changes throughout the business. A major increase in site traffic might force you to re-work the infrastructure, or customers might demand new features. To continuously adapt, you must be aware of the context and back-story of any project. Measurement and telemetry are the fundamental practices needed to consistently improve team performance and security.

Automation is another approach that has helped organizations adapt to the post-COVID landscape. Everyone should promote automation within fault-tolerant systems when there’s uncertainty. Beyond reliability, automation cuts costs, boosts efficiency, productivity, and improves performance. Fortunately, we now have access to a host of technical options that make automation simple to implement.

Any crisis will also force businesses to adjust how they manage costs. Doing so involves more than selecting the right tools. That’s where FinOps comes in. This relatively new practice leverages cost optimization as a specific activity with a clear focus that dictates the project’s organization and governance. FinOps provides more knowledge and control over what you spend, improving your likelihood of staying on the correct course during uncertain periods. The ability to be nimble is always important, and today it’s even more critical to weave resilience into the way you manage technology costs.

Enterprises all of sizes are also using low code to acclimate to the new conditions. Low code allows you to deliver applications at much quicker pace. As a set of technologies, low code means being able to complete development projects with or without the aid of technical support.

Companies have developed their own apps to help with staffing, remote work, internal communications and more. One of the key benefits of low code is that project leads can choose from a vast selection of design libraries, with the ability to switch to hand-coding only when necessary. In turn, they can make changes quickly (and often) to get new offerings into the hands of users.

We can never anticipate what will force businesses to change. But with the right mindset, the change will not only be painless, it can be fruitful.

 

 

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