Executive summary

Today’s CIOs are optimistic and confident. They see themselves as ahead of the game and well positioned against rivals. They are empowered to make key decisions and have the budget to make things happen.

The modern CIO is also realistic, conscious that challenges lie ahead that will test their skills, experience and powers of agility. They know that the right partnerships can get them past these challenges and on to where they aspire to be.

These were some of the findings of Colt’s CIO Mindset survey. In this eBook, we identify the steps and solutions CIOs need to consider to reach their future ambitions.

The ‘ambition gap’

Even the most ambitious CIO knows that there are gaps in where they are today and where they would like to be in two years’ time – their ‘ambition gap’.

We found two in particular that CIOs must bridge; Tech For Good and Customer Centricity.

Tech For Good

Technology can play a positive role in a range of areas, from providing better care for employees to sustainability and improved protection for customer data. The right tech used in the right way can deliver more sustainable use of resources, give back to the community and improve corporate governance.

Tech for good has sometimes taken a back seat on the CIO agenda, so busy have they been with other mission-critical areas such as digital transformation and keeping up with rapid technology change. How can the CIO do more to deliver technology that leads to a better life for employees, greater security for customers and a cleaner environment?

Sustainability

54% of CIOs say that their organisations has already set sustainability goals. Now they want to take it to the next level by becoming even more energy efficient. For this they must turn to technologies like Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) and data analytics. IoT and 5G, for example, can solve tech challenges nearer to their source, saving the need for complicated intervention.

AI and ML offer low impact solutions to problems that once required manual processes. Analytics measures IT’s effectiveness centrally.

CIOs can also exercise environmental power when they choose vendors and partners. When evaluating the business case, they need to consider sustainability metrics to make sure that the solutions are environmentally sound.

What to consider

  • Devise a comprehensive checklist for IT suppliers to assess where they stand on sustainability
  • Are you always choosing the solutions that work best for the environment and for the good of the community?
  • If you haven’t implemented sustainability goals then now is the time. Ask a partner for help

How can Colt help?

Colt is the right partner for sustainability. Sustainability is a core ingredient of our DNA and future business strategy and we’re committed to reducing carbon emissions in all our activities. We have set comprehensive, near-term emissions reduction targets approved by the Science-Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) and are working on developing our long- term targets and net zero strategy. We understand eco challenges and can help the CIO to set a sustainability agenda.

Hybrid work

When it comes to tech for the good of employees, CIOs are tasked with supporting today’s hybrid working patterns. An effective cloud strategy is central to the success of any hybrid work policy, helping create a level playing field regardless of location. With many organisations relying on the use of multiple public cloud platforms, providing seamless and secure access to essential workloads is a critical tech for good priority.

What to consider

  • Ask your remote workers if they believe that they are getting the same access to applications and workloads as office-based colleagues
  • Are you implementing the right solutions for today’s edge compute needs?
  • Is your connectivity suited for a multi-cloud strategy?

How can Colt help?

Colt has been busy the last few years helping organisations and their workers with intelligent, scalable cloud connectivity and with the communication platforms to keep people connected. We understand that the right approach to connectivity can truly make or break cloud transformation as well as make a critical difference to hybrid working. To underpin all this you need a network that gives you reliable high performance, scalability, control and security, with solutions like SD WAN, Secure Access Service  Edge and Intelligent Communications.

For all workers, regardless of location, network security is essential when set against a rising tide of cybersecurity threats. The number of companies experiencing cyberattacks and the frequency of these attacks have continued to increase, and regulations such as GDPR mean that companies face ever-increasing penalties for data breaches on top of any reputational damage they might suffer.

Only with the right security in place can an organisation ensure the productivity of workers as well as the integrity of customer and supplier data.

Cybersecurity

What to consider

  • Are you still relying on old school perimeter-based cybersecurity protection?
  • In the era of the fluid network edge it could be time to look into alternatives like Zero Trust
  • What are the weakest links in your IT? Are they on- prem or in the field?

How can Colt help?

With Colt as a partner, you have both data and network security covered. New technologies such as edge computing, AI, and IoT, expose your business to new types of vulnerability. We understand these and how their protection relies on multiple layers of defence at all points on the network. Colt can provide security solutions to underpin the world class connectivity solutions we supply, and work with our partners to deliver security that you can rely on. Colt is also the only telco to have Binding Corporate Rules in place, giving the highest standards of data protection.

For all workers, regardless of location, network security is essential when set against a rising tide of cybersecurity threats. The number of companies experiencing cyberattacks and the frequency of these attacks have continued to increase, and regulations such as GDPR mean that companies face ever-increasing penalties for data breaches on top of any reputational damage they might suffer.

Only with the right security in place can an organisation ensure the productivity of workers as well as the integrity of customer and supplier data.

What to consider

  • Are you still relying on old school perimeter-based cybersecurity protection?
  • In the era of the fluid network edge it could be time to look into alternatives like Zero Trust
  • What are the weakest links in your IT? Are they on- prem or in the field?

How can Colt help?

With Colt as a partner, you have both data and network security covered. New technologies such as edge computing, AI, and IoT, expose your business to new types of vulnerability. We understand these and how their protection relies on multiple layers of defence at all points on the network. Colt can provide security solutions to underpin the world class connectivity solutions we supply, and work with our partners to deliver security that you can rely on. Colt is also the only telco to have Binding Corporate Rules in place, giving the highest standards of data protection

Customer Centricity

On the whole, CIOs don’t set up or oversee customer experience (CX) programs. But a massive 91% perceive customer centricity as a vitally important initiative within their function and it’s an ambition gap that they are keen to close. There are a number of areas within customer centricity for CIOs to consider.

Contact centres

There’s a CIO role in setting up and running a modern, integrated, cloud-based customer contact centre, the central point from where all customer interactions

are managed. Contact centre agents need the ability to serve customers effectively in any location, helping to deliver meaningful customer relationships and meet expectations of a personalised experience.

What to consider

  • Is your contact centre as modern as it could be?
  • Does it offer good value for money against a solution that is offered as a service?
  • Could a cloud-based solution benefit your contact centre model?

How can Colt help?

Customer centricity is best served with a contact centre solution that is fit for purpose. Contact  centre as a service (CCaaS) is a cloud-based solution that empowers companies to operate a virtual contact centre using cloud software. We understand the end customer challenges and so we have brought together our industry-leading connectivity with the market leaders in CCaaS and digital transformation services in a single relationship to create our cloud contact centre solution.

Flexibility to adjust to customer needs

Only 51% of CIOs saw themselves as more flexible than their competition when it came to adjusting and updating the customer digital experience when needed. Post pandemic, customer expectations on the digital experiences they’re provided are high. CIO’s need to assess their infrastructure to make sure that they can scale and flex changes on-demand, in line with having a pulse on what their customers expect.

What to consider

  • Make a list of the platforms/sites/applications that your customers engage with your business on. Assess where the experience can be improved. Identify any potential gaps.
    • Examine whether you have the right infrastructure to support changes to the digital experience, or if you might need a partner’s help with that
    • Assess what the experience your customers have might look like in the future, do you have foundations to support this and the building blocks to get there?
    • Consider the timelines and budget needed to action a change to your network

How can Colt help?

Your network needs to be scalable and flexible to adjust to the rising demands of customers. Colt On Demand offers a number of benefits over traditional networking – including online ordering via a customer portal or Application Programming Interface (API), rapid service delivery to data centres and clouds and flexible bandwidth options. With our intuitive online portal, you can rapidly spin up your services in near real-time and scale your bandwidth in line
with your business needs.

Measuring satisfaction

If you can’t measure customer centricity then you don’t know how well you are doing. That’s why the CIO needs to monitor CX across a variety of channels and include CX as a metric in their own projects. This could involve the use of a customer experience index (CX Index) or net promoter score (NPS), or perhaps the setting up of customer communities online.

What to consider

  • How good is your organisation at measuring customer satisfaction digitally?
  • Are you using the latest metrics?
  • How well do your partners understand your CX goals?

How can Colt help?

Colt understands CX metrics well, because we use them ourselves. A key part of CX is a trusted, reliable network foundation and ensuring that your customers can expect consistency. We’ve also been on our own customer experience journey and have an industry-leading NPS score.

The power of partnerships

Faced with ambition gaps in tech for good and customer centricity, what can CIOs do to bring themselves closer to where they want to be? It’s clear that they won’t be able to do it alone. The right partners can help them identify and deploy the right solutions, and get best value from what they spend.

Partnerships are a key part of who we are and what we do. The Colt Partner Hub is built up of software vendors, cloud service providers, data centre and technology partners. Our digital ecosystem of partnerships has been built to ensure digital transformation projects deliver on all objectives. It enables us to support a CIO’s ambitions, from better support for hybrid working, to improved levels of automation, to the use of APIs to create better access to applications, suppliers and partners.

For more information

visit www.colt.net

E-mail: [email protected]