One of the roles of the CIO has long been to make exec­u­tive deci­sions on any­thing relat­ed to the pur­chase or use of IT hard­ware, soft­ware, and ser­vices. They are respon­si­ble for more than just keep­ing an organization’s appli­ca­tions and infra­struc­ture run­ning; they also dri­ve sound busi­ness deci­sions and appro­pri­ate ROI. Now, per­haps more than ever, the CIO’s abil­i­ties are crit­i­cal to deci­pher which IT invest­ments are nec­es­sary ver­sus what can be put on hold. 

The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic has caused a shift in how CIOs make those deter­mi­na­tions. Accord­ing to the ASUG Pulse Check Week 7 report, 47% of respon­dents said their orga­ni­za­tions were not can­cel­ing any planned IT ini­tia­tives, while near­ly half (45%) shared that they are post­pon­ing a few planned ini­tia­tives. The top rea­son respon­dents pro­vid­ed to explain these can­cel­la­tions was that these ini­tia­tives were not con­sid­ered ​“core” projects. 

What is con­sid­ered core can dif­fer from one com­pa­ny to the next, depend­ing on a num­ber of vari­ables, but the process used to make those deci­sions is pret­ty basic. 

Where to Focus Both Short- and Long-Term IT Investments