The National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) released the State CIO Top 10 Priorities for 2020 on Dec. 11.
The annual list highlights state CIOs’ top policy and technology priorities for the coming year and is based on voting by 50 state CIOs.
The top 10 policy priorities are:
- Cybersecurity and risk management;
- Digital government;
- Cloud services;
- Consolidation/optimization;
- Customer relationship management;
- Budget, cost control, fiscal management;
- Legacy modernization;
- Data management and analytics;
- Broadband/wireless connectivity; and
- Innovation and transformation through technology.
The list is largely similar to last year’s ranking, though some of the priorities moved around in terms of exact ranking. Cybersecurity, cloud, digital government, and consolidation/optimization remained high on the list. Two noteable changes were the additions of legacy modernization and innovation and transformation through technology, which replaced enterprise IT governance and identity and access management. NASCIO noted that this is the first appearance of innovation and transformation through technology while legacy modernization is making a reappearance since falling off the list in 2018.
“It is not surprising that cybersecurity remains number one nor that cloud, optimization, and digital government round out the top spots,” said Eric Boyette, NASCIO president and secretary and CIO for the State of North Carolina. “State CIOs are constantly trying to protect their states while at the same time enable delivery of critical services for the citizens they serve.”
Unsurprisingly, many of the top technology priorities map onto the top policy priorities. The top tech priorities are:
- Cloud solutions;
- Legacy application modernization/renovation;
- Data analytics;
- Security enhancement tools;
- Identity and access management;
- Collaboration technologies;
- Artificial intelligence/robotic process automation;
- Data management;
- Enterprise resource planning (ERP); and
- Public safety radio network.
While there was strong continuity between the 2019 and 2020 rankings, there were some changes. Data analytics, artificial intelligence/robotic process automation, and public safety radio replaced business intelligence and business analytics, disaster recovery/business continuity, and networking.
