Looking ahead to 2025, there are six key priorities for Australian businesses navigating the complexities of the digital age.

Cybersecurity: Everyone's job

Managing cyber risk at all levels of the workforce—not restricting it to just the top organisational level—should be a priority for security leaders in 2025. This involves the democratisation of cybersecurity, making everyone in an organisation responsible for its defence. The benefits go beyond stronger security and increased resilience; they can lead to cost savings, better efficiency, and even innovation in security practices.

To make this work, organisations must move beyond traditional once-a-year training sessions. Continuous security engagement programs are essential, along with giving employees access to the right self-service tools and resources. This is crucial because the biggest challenge to democratising security is poorly equipped employees and ill-defined processes. 

Embracing a distributed governance model for compliance

Multiple regulations and their related, year-round audits will soon force privacy and compliance leaders to implement a distributed compliance framework to ensure pervasive compliance. This approach recognises that compliance is a shared responsibility that touches every department within an organisation instead of relying solely on a central compliance team.

The central compliance team is primarily responsible for program management. The team should have a pulse of what's happening in the industry and map the requirements evolving out of relevant regulations and standards. This helps the central compliance team keep leadership updated about the evolving landscape and macro-challenges posed.

On the other hand, execution of the compliance program should be broad, empowering business functions at all levels. Each team and business function should understand risk management and use it consistently to address non-conformities flagged during audits as well as for root cause analysis of incidents.

When teams are well-equipped, compliance is no longer seen as a hindrance but as a strategic tool that supports business growth. A distributed governance model ensures that compliance controls are practical and relevant, avoiding the pitfalls of overengineering or rigid, task-driven processes.

Finally, friction is reduced between the central compliance function and other business functions.

Reengineering experiences for customers and employees

Customers and employees are the greatest assets to an organisation. Every interaction they have—whether it’s with a human or a machine—shapes their overall experience and directly impacts the organisation’s success. As expectations evolve and technology advances, reengineering these experiences has become a strategic imperative for leaders aiming to drive transformation and ensure long-term growth.

Modern users expect ease of use, availability, consistency, proactive updates, contactless digital interactions, and open feedback channels. Meeting these demands often requires reimagining an organisation’s existing technology architecture, addressing scalability and compatibility issues, and adopting cutting-edge technologies like AI and advanced analytics. These tools can provide actionable insights, customise workflows, and support seamless interactions.

However, reengineering comes with its challenges. Organisations must carefully consider the context, including their size and the potential productivity impact during the transition. Another challenge would be ensuring IT security while at the same time ensuring those measures don't hinder or impact the user experience.

However, reengineering ultimately fulfils the primary purpose of the business by enhancing employee engagement and customer satisfaction.

Outcome-driven IT

Modern-day enterprises are powered by IT, which now occupies a place at the top of the management table, not as a back-office function. Any failure that results in services being unavailable or disrupted can result in huge business implications. Yet, in some quarters, IT is still considered a cost centre rather than a contributor to business profits.

To change this perception, IT leaders must clearly articulate the value IT brings to the business or risk shrinking budgets. While dashboards provide metrics that point to the operational performance of a technology, they don’t always present a clear case for the business benefits derived. That clarity can be gained by aligning IT with operational efficiency, business velocity, and opportunity costs.

In 2025, CIOs need to focus on KPIs and metrics that provide a direct link to the business outcomes that depend on them. For instance, in the healthcare industry where there is constant focus on safeguarding data and compliance management, metrics that track user behaviour and anomalies are most vital since they all affect business operations.

Scaling up AI usage

The pursuit of digital maturity is reshaping how businesses are operating, and AI is playing a pivotal role in it. The past few years were significant for AI, as a lot of enterprises ran pilots to harness its capabilities. Looking ahead to 2025, the focus is shifting toward scaling AI implementations and realising tangible returns on investment.

AI will also take centre stage in cybersecurity. With attacks becoming more sophisticated by leveraging AI, traditional cybersecurity measures may not be enough to defend against them. This is where investing in AI for defence becomes crucial. Investing in augmented AI is also becoming increasingly important as it can significantly enhance employee productivity. Additionally, we can expect to see more LLMs being utilised in the enterprise setting. These LLMs will be equipped with agents that can make real-time API calls and augment their generative capabilities.

To realise all this, it's crucial for companies to have a solid data strategy in place. This includes streamlining relevant processes and ensuring that they are in sync with that strategy. CIOs must prioritise data sovereignty and data preparation—operating on encrypted data—as these foundational elements will be the backbone of AI-driven innovation.

Embracing sustainability

Investments into GPUs are skyrocketing as they play a critical role in training deep learning models and supporting faster computing. However, their energy requirements, which are difficult to maintain and constitute massive carbon footprints, call for immediate intervention.

Sustainability reduces environmental harm, appeals to eco-conscious customers, ensures regulatory compliance, and enhances operational efficiency. In 2025, sustainability will become a strategic priority for businesses looking to differentiate themselves in the market.

In the digital world, a sustainable outlook reduces the environmental damage inflicted by such advanced technologies, meets the demands of environmentally conscious customers, helps adhere to compliance standards, and improves efficiency, making it a key competitive differentiator and a strategic priority for organisations in 2025.

Regardless of the challenges involved in incorporating sustainability into existing business operations, organisations can still make meaningful progress toward environmental responsibility by conducting internal environmental audits, raising their investments to explore alternate energy sources, and gaining carbon credits.

By strategically prioritising the aspects above, enterprises will be empowered to secure their business posture, gain a competitive advantage, and enhance their operational efficiency as the digital realm continues driving forward.