What’s keeping tech leaders at India Inc awake at night

Technology leaders in India are grappling with various challenges on a daily basis as they need to ensure business operations are streamlined with the help of new tech products and solutions but also ensure the processes and systems are robust enough to withstand cyber security threats. 

To gauge how do top tech leaders in companies across sectors assess these challenges, The C-Suite Circle, a community engagement program under TechCircle catering to Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) and Chief Information Officers (CIOs) among others with similar designations, conducted a snap poll among its members. 

In the whirlwind of breakneck innovation, the orchestration of the ‘technology life cycle’ has emerged as the leading cause of professional anxiety among C-level executives with over half of the surveyed picking it as a key point of concern. The respondents also voted for the unsustainable cost of ownership, social and competitor pressure, policy changes, and work-life balance (in that order) as other leading causes of worry. 

The technology life cycle describes the stages that a new technology goes through from inception to decline. Between the two extremes, technology undergoes additional steps of adoption, growth, and maturity. 

“In technology, fear comes in because of the rapidness in which change happens. We need to see how technology can be a collaborator for solving issues a business is facing or increasing profitability. CXOs need to think about what difference can be brought to the top line and bottom line by such adoption,” suggests Deepa Seshadri, partner and CIO program leader at Deloitte India. 

Take, for instance, the meteoric rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI) since November 2022. The launch of Microsoft-backed OpenAI's smart chatbot, ChatGPT, last year, resulted in a paradigm shift across various industries. 

Since then, a slew of competitors, including Google's Bard, has entered the arena. Simultaneously, companies like Meta, Google, and Anthropic have launched their foundational models which form the base for generative AI applications. Indian IT services firms have embraced this wave, initiating pilot programs and upskilling a significant workforce in generative AI. 

The pace of technological change, however, is not without its consequences. Keeping up with the dynamic nature of this landscape and evaluating a new technology’s impact on the organisation’s outlook requires decision-making, accurate analysis, time, and resources. The ever-evolving field creates a demand for staying abreast of every development, which over time can lead to exhaustion among decision-makers, and push them to a state of uncertainty. 

Further, the decision-making also extends to resource allocation. Investing in new cutting-edge solutions comes with a huge cost, and CXOs often have to walk on a tightrope managing budgets while being competitive. This along with assessing technology trends, evaluating industry partnerships, and forecasting long-term impact can often be a daunting task. 

Cyber security threats also loom large along with technology advancement. Again referring to the example of generative AI, in the earlier months of ChatGPT adoption, several companies had to ban its usage by employees in view of company confidential information leaks. 

Business leaders are under pressure to create air-tight mechanisms to avoid situations like this to arise. Failure to do so may lead to data breaches and reputational damage. Here it is important to also note the concept of technical debt. In the bid to quickly adopt a piece of technology to meet immediate needs through shortcuts and compromises can lead to long-term detrimental consequences. 

The technology life cycle presents a formidable challenge for CXOs, who must navigate a constantly changing landscape marked by innovation, budget constraints, cybersecurity threats, and strategic decision-making. 

Notably, while technology life cycle did top the charts in terms of anxiety factor, unsustainable cost of ownership (of technology) came as the other key concern for tech leaders.