Latin America. The role of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) has undergone a significant transformation in recent years, going from being in charge of a company's technology systems to being at the forefront of innovation and being responsible for effectively advising the C-suite about technology strategies for their organizations.
Softtek, a company dedicated to helping its clients evolve through digital technology, in its most recent report, CTO Challengers, mentions that next year will be a challenging year for these leaders, who will have to prepare for the imminent disruption of quantum computing, the acceleration of AI and autonomous technologies.
For Luis Martínez, Country Manager for Colombia, "CTOs must lead the digital transformation of their companies from a holistic perspective and anticipate technological trends," and adds, "integrating new technologies into their businesses with a customer-centric vision is crucial in their digital strategy to improve competitiveness."
Here are some key challenges that CTOs face in the digital age:
Smart budget allocation: 90% of CTOs and CIOs plan to increase their technology budgets by 2025, focusing on cybersecurity, automation, and autonomous systems. The strategic allocation of resources will be essential to balance long-term investments with immediate results.
2.- Retain and motivate high-performance talent: more than 80% of companies report difficulties in attracting and retaining qualified technological talent. Creating a culture of excellence and implementing intelligent analytics tools will be key to maintaining productive and engaged teams.
Smart cybersecurity: With cyber threats on the rise, cybersecurity must be proactive and adaptive. In this context, technological advances such as self-evolving software, genetic programming and polymorphic applications emerged. Generative artificial intelligence gives these systems the ability to monitor, detect and neutralize threats in real-time, protecting the company's digital assets.
4.- Technical debt management: By 2025, more than 91% of CTOs believe that technical debt slows down the adoption of new technologies. Generative AI and AI Pair Programming will be essential to efficiently address and manage this challenge, optimizing error detection and shortening code development cycle times, for example.
5.- Prepare for quantum computing: quantum computing is already a reality, the demand for experts in this area will increase as the trend evolves. CTOs must be prepared to integrate this disruptive technology, adapting current systems and leading the transition to new processing capabilities.
CTOs are a pillar in business strategy and an agent of strategic change within organizations. The success of its management will lie in its ability to adapt to a constantly evolving technological landscape and in anticipating trends, in order to define a strategy that effectively incorporates new technologies, allowing it to expand the current scope of its business models and keeping them competitive.
