How CIOs Align Strategy, IT and Business in 2026
Three Trends That Are Redefining the Role of the CIO
A conversation with Martin Stephany, Senior Partner and Head of CIO Advisory at 4C
IT is now at the heart of business development. Organizations that use data effectively, make sound cloud decisions and align processes efficiently create the foundation for growth and resilience. At the same time, the role of the CIO is changing rapidly. No longer just a technology leader, the CIO is increasingly making decisions that shape business success.
Against this backdrop, CIO Magazine asked us to assess the most important trends shaping the CIO agenda in 2026. In the article, we identified three developments that are currently having a major impact on the role of the CIO:
1. The development of sovereign and hybrid IT infrastructures
2. IT's growing responsibility for business processes
3. Rising cyber risks and the increasing importance of operational resilience
But what do these trends mean in practice for the role of the CIO? We discussed this with the author of the article, Martin Stephany, Senior Partner and Head of CIO Advisory at 4C.
In the article for CIO Magazine, you describe three key developments: building sovereign IT infrastructures, taking greater responsibility for business processes and strengthening cyber resilience. How are these trends changing the role of the CIO?
We are seeing a significant expansion of the CIO's role. By 2026, the CIO will no longer be seen primarily as a technology leader, but as an active shaper of business development. Today, IT is inseparably linked to value creation, processes and decision-making. At the same time, fundamental technology decisions are becoming increasingly important, for example those related to cloud architectures, edge concepts, data sovereignty and the use of AI. These decisions shape not only costs, but also the scalability, resilience and compliance readiness of entire business models. That is precisely why the CIO is moving closer to business-critical issues and increasingly becoming a sparring partner for the executive board on strategic and data-driven decisions. We expect this development to continue.
What new skills are essential for CIOs?
In addition to technical excellence, CIOs today need, above all, a deep understanding of business processes and operational control mechanisms. The ability to translate IT services into business value is becoming increasingly important. At the same time, communication and facilitation skills are essential to bring business and IT closer together. Governance, risk and resilience thinking are also becoming more important. CIOs must be able to assess where dependencies arise, for example through cloud providers, data flows or embedded AI, and how these can be actively managed. Our latest study, based on numerous interviews with CIOs, confirms this clearly. It shows that CIOs see data quality, AI capabilities and top management support as the three most important success factors for AI adoption in German companies. This underlines that capability building must be approached not only from a technical perspective, but also from an organizational and cultural one. In short, CIOs need to understand and connect technology, organization and business in equal measure.
Why are CIOs in data-driven organizations increasingly taking on responsibilities traditionally associated with the COO?
In data-driven organizations, processes, automation and decision-making logic run on IT platforms. This means that a significant share of operational control now effectively sits within IT. We often see CIOs taking responsibility for end-to-end processes because they can ensure transparency, data quality and automation. This is very close to the traditional profile of a COO. The CIO is thus becoming a co-owner of operational value creation. This is not the result of a shift in power, but of functional necessity.
What does this mean for decision-making at board level?
Decision-making is becoming more data-driven and more focused on resilience. Today's CIOs contribute not only technical assessments, but also evaluate the impact on processes, risks, dependencies and recovery capabilities. This is changing boardroom discussions, away from isolated decisions and toward more integrated thinking. In many companies, we see IT issues being addressed earlier and in a more strategic way. This improves the quality of decisions, but it also requires clearer roles and responsibilities at board level.
How do CIOs resolve the tension between efficiency and resilience?
This tension is real and affects almost every CIO. Efficiency is created through standardization, automation and scale. Resilience, by contrast, requires redundancy, segmentation and deliberate architectural choices. Successful CIOs do not see resilience as an additional cost, but as a prerequisite for stable efficiency. In practice, this means protecting critical processes in a targeted way while consistently optimizing less critical areas. The key lies in differentiation: not everything has to be maximally resilient, but the right things do. The challenge is to strike that balance in a transparent and understandable way.
What three questions should CEOs be asking their CIOs today?
Which business processes are critically dependent on IT today, and how quickly could we restore them in the event of disruption?
How confident are we in our cloud, data and AI decisions, and where do critical dependencies remain?
Where are we investing specifically in stability, and where are we consciously prioritizing efficiency?
CIOs should be able to answer these questions clearly, factually and from a business perspective.
How can you tell whether your IT organization is future-ready?
A future-ready IT organization is manageable, transparent and resilient. Budgets, services, risks and dependencies are clearly traceable and not only explainable in hindsight. Architectural decisions are made deliberately and actively managed, especially in the interplay between cloud, edge and on-premises infrastructure. Future readiness is also reflected in how quickly the organization can respond to new requirements, both technologically and organizationally. In short: if IT no longer needs to justify itself, but instead enables informed decision-making, the organization is on the right track.
