Running for seven years now, Brainstorm’s CIO Survey provides an annual benchmark on the issues and challenges that South Africa’s CIOs are facing, by polling many of the country’s leading decision-makers. But while the survey has some history to draw comparisons from, none of the previous six years has thrown more curveballs than 2020.

The rapid shift to remote working in response to the lockdown was obviously a major focus for the CIO, organisation and its IT department, as was digital transformation. Asked how Covid-19 affected their organisations, 67% of respondents said that digital transformation was accelerated during the pandemic. Of the remainder, 17% noted there was no substantial change, while 11% had undergone rationalisation / consolidation of business units, and 6% said a substantial part of the operations had been closed.