CIOopinion
CIO OPINION
“
THE INCREASE IN
STRESS FROM SECURITY
ALONE ROSE BY 14% SINCE
THE PANDEMIC BEGAN.
Jacqui Guichelaar, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer
at Cisco
IT is challenged but
will emerge stronger
than ever
Jacqui Guichelaar, Senior
Vice President and Chief
Information Officer at Cisco,
discusses the recent Cisco
survey in which CIOs reveal
their fears, strengths and
strategies for coping with
the pandemic.
In my position as Cisco’s CIO, I
often have the opportunity to
connect with my peers across the
industry. And that’s been a great
source of strength in these very
unpredictable times.
I know at Cisco we’re already accustomed
to remote working, and we have the
network expertise to make it happen on
a large scale. But to go from 20,000 to
140,000 remote workers in 10 days was
something we had never dealt with, and
it required a great deal of co-ordination
and teaming across the company. We
had teams working around the clock and
doing whatever it took to make sure Cisco
employees could quickly begin working
from home.
So, it was great to check in with other
CIOs to gauge their stress levels and see
where we could help. Many have done the
same for me.
That’s why I’m excited about the results
from a new Cisco study which has been
released, CIO Impact Report: COVID-19.
For this study, we asked more than 300
global CIOs specifically on how the
COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their
leadership strategies, day-to-day stress
levels and perspectives on current and
future IT strategies.
It’s no secret that this has been a
difficult transition for CIOs, and the CIO
Impact study reported that 78% feel
the pandemic has had a severe or major
impact on their organizations. Beyond
that, some interesting insights emerged:
• Our survey respondents listed the
top stress drivers as security, VPN
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