4 ways CIOs can overcome critical operational challenges

Chief information officers (CIOs) are well aware of mounting pressure to do more with less. They operate against a competitive backdrop rocked by tough economic headwinds, rising technology costs, and a competitive talent market.

Fortunately, IT leaders are an enterprising group. They constantly look for innovative ways to overcome operational challenges, drive their business forward, and create value for customers and employees alike. Enter hyperautomation and low-code, essential tools for any successful organization.

Hyperautomation extends the application, and subsequent benefits, of automation across a much wider surface area of business use cases—leading to reduced operational costs, enhanced efficiency, and improved employee experience.

“Gartner® forecasts that the spending on hyperautomation-enabling software technologies will reach $720 billion in 2023. The worldwide market for low-code development technologies is projected to total $26.9 billion in 2023, an increase of 19.6% from 2022.”¹

Low-code plays a central role in the successful delivery of hyperautomation, expanding development capacity beyond traditional development and engineering teams. With low-code, teams are more agile and productive, and can launch new apps and products in a fraction of the time.

Let’s explore four ways CIOs can apply hyperautomation and low-code in everyday operations to reap the rewards.

1. Optimize internal processes

No organization is perfect. Across every tech stack, there’s typically at least one piece of sluggish legacy technology acting as a bottleneck, slowing operations and reducing efficiencies.

IT teams should pursue a tech stack that’s always on and in which low-code and hyperautomation shine. By taking a low-code approach, IT leaders can transform ailing legacy processes into modern digital workflows—in a fraction of the time and with reduced effort.

CIOs don’t necessarily have to upgrade every single piece of legacy tech in their stack. They can simply use low-code to improve the delivery of these apps and services and boost their operational returns.

2. Reduce asset lifecycle costs

CIOs are constantly on the hunt for ways to improve the efficiency of both their team and the organization. Asset lifecycle is a vital area that affects the entire business—meaning any efficiency gains in this space can significantly improve an organization’s ability to react and scale.

Hyperautomation can help CIOs better manage, track, and automate key aspects of the asset lifecycle. Extending the lifespan of assets will decrease costs over time while mitigating the risks of defunct technology and service downtime.

End-to-end visibility into processes and systems can enable IT leaders to dive deep into what’s working and what’s not. These insights can even be shared with other teams—such as security, risk, and business development—to improve efficiency across the organization.

3. Boost employee productivity and engagement

In the wake of the pandemic and the ensuing great digital transformation, employee experience has surged to the top of the CIO agenda. A great employee experience relies on an organization’s ability to adapt and support new ways of working, such as mobile and flexible environments and self-service processes.

This rising demand for employee flexibility and autonomy extends from IT to HR, payroll, finance, legal, and other departments. Hyperautomation can help CIOs and other members of the C-suite work together to create a seamless employee experience from a central employee hub or portal.

This can empower employees—regardless of their team, function, or location—to access workflows and apps that are customized to their unique needs, often without any manual intervention or custom coding.

Portals powered by hyperautomation also help employees feel engaged and valued through improved and consistent communication. Automation replaces many of the manual aspects of maintaining an intranet, such as delivering relevant company news, updates, and upcoming events.

4. Securely accelerate innovation

CIOs must juggle dozens of apps (new and legacy) across the organization. At the same time, they’re under constant pressure to innovate and release new apps quickly and efficiently.

Low-code can help CIOs empower people to quickly create and launch apps that would otherwise become stuck in development queues. Although rapidly releasing new apps can produce issues, especially around security and compliance, this is also where low-code excels.

Armed with the right low-code platform, CIOs can drive their business forward with quick and secure app releases while maintaining guardrails of governance, thanks to built-in security and compliance.

Find out more about digital solutions that will help your business grow in our CIO’s guide.

¹ Gartner Press Release, “Gartner Forecasts Worldwide Low-Code Development Technologies Market to Grow 20% in 2023,” December 13, 2022.

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

© 2023 ServiceNow, Inc. All rights reserved. ServiceNow, the ServiceNow logo, Now, and other ServiceNow marks are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of ServiceNow, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other company names, product names, and logos may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.