For I&O leaders, this means mobility must now be a top concern in system design - it also means that simply making a service available on a mobile device is not enough. Instead, services must be specifically built for those devices, so they are useful and not a hindrance.
I&O leaders should assume that a variety of devices will access every application and build those applications accordingly as well as viewing mobility as not just being about devices and infrastructure, but about the individual and their experience with IT systems.
Secondly, CIOs are recognising the need for modern, advanced analytics and IT business value metrics, requiring new IT systems and ways of thinking.
To support the changing analytics game, I&O leaders will need to lay an IT foundation for predictive analytics — an effort that is difficult but decreasing in cost thanks to parallel processing frameworks that can run analytics solutions.
They will also need to run data-led experiments, working with their business unit colleagues. For example, I&O leaders can run a social-listening activity to better understand the needs of the end customer.
In supporting new information initiatives such as social listening, I&O leaders will need to better manage unstructured data so that it can be exploited by the business and look for additional and/or new data sources specific to the project and begin mining them.
CIOs must also refocus on analytics for their own teams where new metrics will be needed to drive the business forward.
Thirdly, I&O teams need to prepare today to deploy post-nexus technologies, which are already on enterprise radar.
The Nexus of Forces (mobile, social, cloud and information) is not on the horizon; it is here. The survey findings underline the fact that CIOs are beginning to think about — and even actively pursue — post-nexus technologies.
These technologies include the Internet of Things (IoT), thinking machines, augmented human, 3D printing and robotics. If they haven't already, I&O leaders must ready themselves and their organisations for a culture of experimentation, innovation and deployment of post-nexus technologies.
There is, however, an obstacle to post-nexus technologies. CIOs, on average, are stuck thinking about now, rather than the future, with 84 percent of CIOs surveyed focused on the near term of three years or sooner.
New digital business initiatives will require IT talent, leadership and integration skills. I&O leaders will need to find ways to help not just the CIO, but the rest of IT, spend less time on running the business to afford opportunities to grow and, ideally, help transform the business.