The remarkable changes in technology, customer needs, and employee expectations have significantly reshaped the scope and function of CIOs. 

 CIOs today play a leading role in a variety of other roles as trusted business partners, including strengthening corporate performance through sophisticated technology, driving business transformation, improving outcomes through process automation, and assuring sustainability through a robust green IT strategy. 

 Finance, marketing, and human resources are just a few of the company functions that rely significantly on a strong IT backbone and smooth system interaction. Data and analytics insights for an instance, provide the head of sales a 360-degree picture of a customer that they may not have had before. Any Intelligent Enterprise is now driven by data and analytics, and a data-driven mindset has become a fundamental component of the CIO strategy. 

 The pandemic also underlined the significance of understanding and ensuring the resilience and flexibility of our IT systems. For the CIO, this means taking on a greater role in providing agility and ensuring that the organization runs smoothly from beginning to finish. This increases the pressure on the CIO, but it may also be a good thing since it gives the job of strategic business enabler more legitimacy. 

 Futuristic skills: 

 Looking ahead, a successful CIO will require four critical abilities and traits in the future: 

 Business Acumen:  

 To successfully develop and drive their organization’s IT strategy that aligns with the overall organization goals, CIOs must go far deeper into the business and understand their customers. They must have acute data and analytics skills for decision-making to keep on top of trends and respond to market situations. The capacity of a CIO lies in driving business technology strategy and building IT practices across the organization and contribute to overall growth. 

 Innovative Thinker:  

 CIOs must be able to see the entire picture of the company, including the impact of IT choices on the business, ROI considerations, and individual requirements of team members. The ideal CIO can locate, implement, and adapt the proper technology to enhance company-wide performance by knowing the whole stack of an organization’s demands. Disruptive thinking also has a wholesome impact. Technology has shown to be very disruptive, upending every business model and status quo. Driving the organization’s technology-based future by thinking out-of-the-box, CIOs today play one of the most critical roles in influencing business innovations. 

 Clear in Communication:  

 Communication and transparency are essential in the CIO’s leadership and business acumen in all aspects.  Overseeing and strategizing around IT and technology requires a close relationship with every business function in an organization. This means successfully deciphering IT challenges and concepts into comprehensible terms with teams of diverse levels of competency around technology. For this reason, a great CIO is an expert at bridging communication gaps.  

 Adaptable Player: 

 The CIO qualities are necessary for successfully leading a team through change and a crisis. However, they are also required in order to adapt to – and be prepared for – the future’s daily needs. Change is a constant companion in the business world and drives innovation. It is crucial to ensure that staff can adapt to change and succeed. Effective CIOs will have a robust people agenda in place, with tools, programs, and career planning routes in place to guarantee that workers progress within their company.