Technology Risk is a Growth Strategy

In today’s hyperconnected enterprise, CIOs are navigating a technology landscape that’s more fragmented, exposed, and high-stakes than ever. The proliferation of IT, OT, and IoT assets—across business units, geographies, and supply chains—has rendered traditional perimeter-based security models obsolete. Visibility is limited. Governance is inconsistent. And the cost of inaction is rising.

Cyber risk is no longer just a defensive concern—it’s a strategic imperative. CIOs who treat technology risk as a lever for transformation can unlock operational resilience, regulatory confidence, and competitive edge. The opportunity is clear: build a governance-driven foundation that enables smarter decisions, faster execution, and enterprise-wide trust.

Why Traditional Risk Management Is Failing

The old model—centralized servers, perimeter firewalls, and siloed oversight—can’t keep up with today’s distributed reality. Enterprises now manage thousands of interconnected assets, many of which fall outside traditional IT’s purview. OT systems on the manufacturing floor, IoT devices in vehicles and warehouses, and third-party platforms across the supply chain all introduce new threat vectors.

CIOs are facing a convergence of challenges:

Asset sprawl: IT, OT, and IoT assets are scattered across geographies, business units, and supply chains, making visibility and oversight difficult.
Regulatory complexity: Varying and evolving compliance requirements across jurisdictions create risk and slow response.
Operational blind spots: OT and IoT environments often lack the same governance rigor as IT, leaving critical infrastructure exposed.
Fragmented ownership: Decentralized procurement and siloed processes hinder unified risk management.
Limited automation: Manual controls and reactive monitoring slow down remediation and increase exposure.

Without a unified view of technology assets and their interdependencies, organizations struggle to assess risk, prioritize remediation, and respond effectively to incidents. The result? Increased exposure, diminished agility, and missed opportunities for optimization.

CIOs face unprecedented pressure to ensure their business objectives are driving the right tech strategy. To make that happen, many are consolidating their fragmented solutions and ensuring they’re getting the greatest ROI from their tech investments so they can realize exponential business outcomes.

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Define Your Technology Risk Profile

Before CIOs can transform risk into resilience, they must understand the unique contours of their organization’s technology risk profile. This means looking beyond IT to the broader business operating model and identifying where vulnerabilities intersect with strategic priorities.

Key questions to guide this assessment include:

Do you have broad visibility into where your tech assets are located, cataloged, and monitored—and who is responsible for them?
Do you understand which assets support the mission critical operations necessary for your business to run smoothly?
Do you have a firm grasp of where your most valuable assets are hosted?
Is there a standardized taxonomy and language in place to classify assets and build foundational data?
Are risk management processes standardized, well understood, uniformly adopted, measured, and rewarded?
Do you understand how your risk management policies and governance compare to leading practices and those of competitors?
Is there a cross-functional committee in place to monitor and assess your strategy, tactics and success metrics?
How is technology risk management embedded into your organization’s culture?

A thorough, objective assessment—whether internal or third party—lays the groundwork for a tailored transformation roadmap. With a clear risk profile in hand, CIOs can move from reactive defense to proactive strategy.

What CIOs Need Now: A Governance-Driven Approach

Technology governance is the cornerstone of modern risk management. CIOs must lead the charge in establishing enterprise-wide governance frameworks that provide macro-to-micro visibility, automate oversight, and align risk management with business strategy.

Effective governance includes:

Clear visibility into IT, OT, and IoT assets and their configurations

Centralized oversight to ensure compliance and reduce breach impact

Open business and technical architecture for flexibility in adopting new technologies

Strong data foundations to help make informed tech investments

Improved data management to streamline efficiency and reduce costs

Expanded transformational opportunities to enable and train AI models

Governance isn’t just about control. It’s about enabling transformation, accelerating innovation, and building digital trust. CIOs who lead with a governance position enable their organizations to thrive in a volatile landscape.

6 Steps to Future-Proof Cyber and Tech Resilience

KPMG has identified six key steps CIOs can take to build a resilient, future-ready technology risk strategy:

Create your risk profile
Assess vulnerabilities across IT, OT, and IoT environments. Understand legal structures, asset visibility, and governance maturity to prioritize risks and identify transformation opportunities.

Identify and categorize enterprise assets
Conduct a deep-dive inventory. Align on a common data language and tag assets to the business functions they support. Visibility is the foundation of control.

Define a technology governance infrastructure
Codify lifecycle management policies. Assign roles and responsibilities. Standardize reporting frameworks and ensure senior leadership engagement.

Explore tooling and automation solutions
Evaluate legacy systems and determine build-versus-buy strategies. Use automation for real-time intelligence, centralized oversight, and efficient remediation.

Establish rollout and governance
Develop a clear implementation roadmap. Use iterative onboarding to scale transformation across business units and integrate with existing tools.

Remember the human touch
Design change management strategies that drive adoption. Communicate the vision, align performance metrics, and deliver engaging training experiences.

Ready to Lead the Transformation?

Technology risk isn’t just a challenge—it’s a chance to lead. CIOs who embrace governance, visibility, and automation can turn complexity into clarity and risk into resilience. The stakes are high, but so is the potential for impact.

KPMG is here to help. Our teams bring deep expertise in cybersecurity, data governance, and transformation strategy. We understand the technical and organizational shifts required to build resilient, future-ready enterprises. From initial assessment to implementation and optimization, we help design cyber risk programs tailored to your unique profile—across technologies, platforms, and business functions.

Let’s future-proof your enterprise—together.

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Insights to Help you Elevate Your Tech Strategy

What sets apart good from great tech leaders? It's their ability to consolidate and connect fragmented solutions, effectively manage business demands from different business functions in a holistic way, and ensure they’re getting the greatest ROI from their tech investment.

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