Management and Cost Control Challenges Loom in 2020

If the predictions made in a recent Forrester report prove true, 2020 will be a year of cost control and people management challenges for CIOs.

The study, "Predictions 2020: On the Precipice of Far-Reaching Change," projects that uncertainties in the upcoming year will frame CIOs' transformation agendas. Leaders will be forced to address cost-cutting and efficiency issues while also having the opportunity to step forward as business leaders, showcasing their tech-driven innovation, ecosystem-building skills, and people management abilities.

CIOs in 2020 will be asked to cut costs in ways that don't diminish capability, said Brian Hopkins, a Forrester vice president and principal analyst. In past years, the typical cost reduction strategy was to eliminate applications and corral staff into using standard tools. This will likely change in 2020. "They will seek to modernize aging, expensive ERM and CRM systems, looking to cloud or infrastructure automation to save cost or at least shift [expenses] to OpEx," Hopkins explained. "They will hope, through that modernization, to automate low-level tasks in IT." As a result, potential cost savings will shift from application licensing and redundant app maintenance expenses to redundant and repetitive task automation.

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