Q&A: Bringing CIOs and IT together for improved efficiencies

Image: © Tim Sandle

How can CIOs and IT leaders to consider work together through the upcoming year to deliver meaningful cost reductions? CIOs invariably lead organisational digital transformation but they must work with the IT department in order to ensure success: a strategic alliance.

To discover more, Digital Journal spoke with Yingqi Wang, CEO and co-founder of ONES, an all-in-one project management software that aligns both technical and non-technical teams.

Digital Journal: Why would you say cost reduction is a top priority right now for CIOs/IT leaders?

Yingqi Wang: One of the main responsibilities of a CIO is to work with the CFO to ensure revenue growth while reducing costs. As leaders plan for 2024, they must consider macroeconomic factors that impact IT budgets, including a chaotic market, supply chain disruptions, and an unstable geopolitical environment. Reducing costs can help mitigate these uncertainties and build operational resilience, and should be a priority in planning ahead for a new year.

While caution and consideration are warranted, CIOs still need to allocate funds for new projects and initiatives to stay sharp in a competitive market. Reducing unnecessary or inefficient operational costs can create more opportunities and funding for strategic innovation. The trick is balancing operational efficiency with smart (if at times risky) investments.

DJ: What are strategies you would recommend to cut down IT costs? Why/when can these approaches be valuable?

Wang:  Periodically re-evaluate whether your business needs to move to the cloud, come back from the cloud, or adopt a hybrid cloud approach as you outline budgets per quarter. For certain types of businesses, moving off the cloud can be a cost-effective strategy, as seen recently by X (Twitter).

Next, Identify areas in your business where output can be explicitly defined and consider outsourcing partnerships instead of hiring full-time employees. Division of labour with outside partners can significantly reduce enterprise costs. Roles such as quality control, non-core research and development, and operational management can all be outsourced.

Also, incorporate professional project management tools into your organization to perfect assessing project progress, identifying risks, and calculating total resources invested in research and development. This approach aids in properly allocating expenses to projects that are essential.

DJ: What advice do you have for CIOs and IT leaders coming into 2024?

Wang: In 2024, CIOs and IT leaders should stay on top of cost reduction while keeping an open mind to the ever-evolving IT developments. Embracing emerging technologies like AI and automation offers new opportunities for efficiency and savings.

With that, focus on data analytics and real-time monitoring to help identify cost-saving opportunities as they arise. Leaders should foster collaboration with procurement and finance teams to align budget strategies with overall business objectives and market conditions. Lastly, continuously advocate for ongoing training and upskilling for IT teams – a skilled workforce is the most important lever to cost-effective operations.