The Acora CIO Report 2022

We are delighted to share our annual CIO report with you.

For the third consecutive year, we reached out to CIOs and other IT leaders in organisations across the UK to get a sense of the challenges they’re facing now, and how they see things developing over the coming months. Our 2022 report is bigger and better.

Building on the success of our 2021 survey, this year it has evolved. The scope was tailored to present you with valuable insights that will help you with strategic operational decision making.

The report is shaped around 5 key CIO priority areas

1. Changes in IT budgets

2. IT Priorities to accommodate remote and hybrid working

3. The importance of delivering a positive user experience

4. The challenges of balancing productivity goals and security requirements

5. Technology investment plans to support agile working

The primary focus is understanding how CIOs across the UK are preparing to support the biggest change in IT that we have seen in years: dealing with hybrid working, now that it is here to stay.

According to our report, 62% of employees at the average respondent organisation are working remotely all or part of the time. Working from home and hybrid working was the natural, logical solution in response to the pandemic. Most of us can confidently say that we assumed the world would go back to normal by now, but clearly not. We have to leave behind the reactive mindset that got us through the worst of the pandemic and start thinking about hybrid working proactively and long-term.

One expected trend over the past 3 years is user experience. It’s clear that businesses desire to adopt a UX, human led approach, but their biggest challenge is collecting the correct data and how to action the findings. Covid-19 without a doubt, threw a spanner in the works.

95% of respondents see delivering a positive user experience as a critical or very important priority in their role. It’s clear that companies are now keenly aware of the benefits of getting the user experience right, or at least making it better. However further insights included in the report, reveals that gathering actionable data is extremely difficult.

A key takeaway is that we need to prioritise, invest, and align enhanced cyber security with a framework or certification. 65% of senior decision makers consider it highly challenging to balance security controls with enabling productivity.

The question is how do you maintain data protection and cyber security levels while also allowing users the freedom they need to work productively in any location? A common headache that’s difficult to overcome.

Download the CIO Report 2022, to find out more.