Businesses say great IT expectations are realised

It argues that CIOs' often-expressed fears – that modern consumer IT-based enterprise systems cannot live up to users' expectations – are exaggerated. Technology and IT, it reports, are largely delivering the results that the rest of the business expects. Of the more than 500 executives surveyed by EIU, across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, 84% say that technology investments in their firms, aimed at delivering greater efficiency, have succeeded as planned. Nearly eight in 10 (78%) say the same about technology projects aimed at reducing costs. Indeed, high-performing companies – those with recent profit growth of 20% or more annually – stand out, with one in four of their technology projects exceeding expectations, compared with less than 5% experiencing flat or negative growth. The report, 'Great expectations or misplaced hopes? Perceptions of business technology in the 21st century', sponsored by HP, reviews how expectations of IT are changing, and assesses the implications for business. Denis McCauley, director of global technology research at the EIU, indicates that the picture revealed is one of consumerisation worries more a distraction than a reality. "CIOs should certainly not ignore the impact of consumerisation on how technology is used in the business," he says. "But they have bigger challenges, such as delivering on technology-enabled innovation, and employees' growing technology savvy should be more of a help in this endeavour than a hindrance." Other interesting findings include that the technology 'generation gap' is also overstated. Younger employees may be more comfortable with new devices and social media, but senior staff are seen as more knowledgeable about technology use in the business. And the value of such knowledge in high places is evident, according to the research. Firms where senior management is strong on technology are 10 times more likely to be high-performers than those where technology knowledge at the top is weak. The real challenge, however, appears to be that of managing expectations resulting from faster IT innovation. One-half of firms polled had completed a new technology initiative in the past three months alone, and rollouts are also significantly faster, points out the study. Coupled with the rapid rate of change in consumer technology, this will to fuel higher expectations of CIOs, it predicts. However, external expectations gaps are the bigger threat. One in three executives believes that the growth of their customers' technology is outpacing their own. This gap is especially prominent between high- and low-profit-growth firms, with companies in the latter category nearly twice as likely to experience a technology gap between themselves and their clients. That said, consumerisation should be seen as an opportunity for CIOs, rather than a threat, according to the EIU. For many CIOs, workplace use of popular consumer devices presents an opportunity, it says. The big challenge for IT, asserts one CIO interviewed for the report, is how to make employees' workplace use of technology as intuitive and fun as it is at home.