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Infrastructure and Operations Priorities 2023

Navigate the liminal space between threats and opportunities.

  • Get out of your I&O silo. I&O teams must be expected to work alongside and integrate with cyber security operations.
  • Being unprepared for new ESG reporting mandates without a clear and validated ESG reporting process puts your organization at risk.
  • Get ahead of inflationary pressures with early budgetary planning and identify the gap between the catchup projects and required critical net new investments.

Our Advice

Critical Insight

  • Establish I&O within an AI governance program to build trust in AI results, behaviors, and limit legal exposure.
  • Develop data governance program that includes an I&O data steward for oversight.
  • Ready or not, the metaverse is coming to an infrastructure near you. Start expanding I&O technologies and processes to support a metaverse infrastructure.

Impact and Result

  • Provide a framework that highlight the impacts the threats of an economic slowdown, growing regulatory reporting requirements, cyber security attacks and opportunity that smart governance over AI, data stewardship and the looming explosion of augmented reality and Web 3.0 technologies.
  • Info-Tech can help communicate your I&O priorities into compelling cases for your stakeholders.

Infrastructure and Operations Priorities 2023 Research & Tools

1. Infrastructure & Operations Priorities 2023 – A framework to dive deeper into the trends most relevant to you and your organization

Discover Info-Tech's six priorities for Infrastructure & Operations leaders.


Infrastructure &Operations Priorities 2023

Navigate the liminal space between threats and opportunities.

2023: A liminal space between threats and opportunities

Over the last several years, successful CEOs turned to their Infrastructure and Operations (I&O) departments to survive the effects of the pandemic. It was I&O leaders who were able to reconfigure critical infrastructure on the fly to support remote work, adapt to critical supply chain shortages, and work with lines of business managers to innovate operational workflows.

2023 promises to bring a new set of challenges. Building on the credibility established during the pandemic, I&O is in a unique position to influence the direction a business will take to be successful in a time of austerity.

I&O members are going to be asked to mitigate the threats of volatility from recession pressures, new cybersecurity attacks, and operational process and litigation from regulatory mandates. At the same time, I&O members are being asked for fundamental digital transformation items to realize long-term opportunities to their organizations in 2023.

Seemingly counter-intuitive in a time of economic slowdown, organizations in 2023 will want to start the groundwork to realizing the I&O opportunities that unstructured data and artificial intelligence have promised, while prepping for what has been mislabeled as the Metaverse.

If you are in a traditionally risk adverse industry, you’re more likely to be impacted by the threat mitigation.

Opportunistic I&O members will use 2023 to proactively jumpstart digital transformation.

Introduction

Welcome to the Info-Tech 2023 I&O Priorities Report

If I&O members learned anything from the last few years, it’s how to tactically respond to the disruptive waves often arising from sources external to the organization. The good news is that Info-Tech’s I&O priorities report provides forward-looking insights to help members become more proactive to the tsunami of change predicted in our Trends Report to happen over the next three to five years.

Info-Tech I&O priorities are generated through a phased approach. The first phase senses and identifies mega and macro tends in the digital landscape to formulate hypotheses about the trends for the next three to five years. These hypotheses are validated by sending out a survey to Info-Tech members. The responses from 813 members was used to produce an Info-Tech Trends Report focused on major long-term trends.

The I&O Priorities were determined by combining the I&O member responses within the Info-tech Trends Survey with insightful signals from secondary research, economic markets, regulatory bodies, industry organizations, and vendors. The six I&O priorities identified in this report are presented in a framework that highlight the impacts of an economic slowdown, growing regulatory reporting requirements, cybersecurity threats, smart governance of AI, embracing stewardship of data, and the looming explosion of augmented reality and Web 3.0 technologies.

We also have a challenge exercise to help you communicate which priorities to focus your I&O organization on. Additionally, we linked some Info-tech research and tools related to the priorities that help your I&O organization formulate actionable plans for each area.

Priorities

Six forward-looking priorities for the next year.

Focus

Activity to help select which priorities are relevant for you.

Actions

Actionable Info-tech research and tools to help you deliver.

Infrastructure & Operations priorities

The I&O priorities were determined by combining I&O member responses from the Tech Trends and Priorities 2023 survey with insightful signals from secondary research, economic markets, regulatory bodies, industry organizations, and vendors.

The image contains a screenshot of the Infrastructure & Operations priorities.

I&O Priorities 2023

The image contains a screenshot of the I&O Priorities.

I&O priorities framework

Threats signals

Enhance I&O Cybersecurity

Produce ESG Reporting

Recession Readiness

Get out of your silo. Forget your job description and start doing what needs to be done.

Infrastructure rarely has authority in these areas, but somehow it ends up with many of the responsibilities. You can't afford to be reactive. Forget about your traditional silo and get out in front of these topics. Not in your job description? Find out whose job it is and make them aware. Better yet – take charge! If you're going to be responsible you might as well be in control.

Opportunities signals

AI Governance: Watching the Watchers

Prep for A Brave New Metaverse

Data Governance: Cornerstone of Value

Proper stewardship of data is an I&O must. If thought you had problems with your unstructured data, wait until you see the data sprawl coming from the metaverse.

I&O needs to be so much more than just an order taker for the dev teams and lines of business. The sprawl of unstructured data in Word, Excel, PDF and PowerPoint was bad historically; imagine those same problems at metaverse scale! Simple storage and connectivity is no longer enough – I&O must move upstream with more sophisticated service and product offerings generated through proper governance and stewardship.

Challenge: Expand the I&O border

The hidden message in this report is that I&O priorities extend beyond the traditional scope of I&O functions. I&O members need to collaborate across functional areas to successfully address the priorities presented in this report.

Info-Tech can help! Align your priorities with our material on how to Build a Business-Aligned IT Strategy. Use a modified version of the Strategy Initiative Template (next slide) to convey your strong opinion on the priorities you need your stakeholders to know about. And do so in a way that is familiar so they will easily understand.

The image contains a screenshot of Info-Tech's Maturity Ladder.
Info-Tech 2023 Trends Survey Results

Call your Executive Advisor or Counselor to help identify the one or two key messages you want to bring forward for success in 2023!

Info-Tech IT Strategy Initiative Template, from the IT Strategy Presentation Template & Priorities Report Initiative Template

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Navigate the liminal space between threats and opportunities.

About Info-Tech

Info-Tech Research Group is the world’s fastest-growing information technology research and advisory company, proudly serving over 30,000 IT professionals.

We produce unbiased and highly relevant research to help CIOs and IT leaders make strategic, timely, and well-informed decisions. We partner closely with IT teams to provide everything they need, from actionable tools to analyst guidance, ensuring they deliver measurable results for their organizations.

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Authors

Theo Antoniadis

John Annand

Contributors

  • Paul Sparks, CTO, Brookshire Grocery Company
  • Troy Cheeseman, Practice Lead, Info-Tech Research Group
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