CIOs to smarten up IT act for 2012, says Oracle/PwC report
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Manufacturers might want to take a leaf out of the communications services sector, where CIOs say they intend to strike a better balance between in-house and outsourced IT – and make better use of applications such as CRM.
Independent research by PwC into the IT priorities of European communications service providers (CSPs) reveals that the majority (60%) currently spend more than half of their opex budget on maintenance.
The study suggests that addressing this is going to be a major priority in 2012 and CIOs will respond with a more strategic use of outsourcing and standardisation.
In order to reduce their own management overheads and combat an immediate shortage of skills in house, CIOs say they will increasingly outsource in 2012, and aspects to move include network and fault management, and provisioning and order management.
Beyond that, 88% of CIOs plan an upgrade of their CRM systems in 2012, the goal being to free them up to focus on more strategic requirements and revenue drivers, such as portal and content applications.
The survey also finds that CIOs will push through a move away from bespoke applications, which typically carry a heavy budget overrun and require greater integration and more careful management.
More than two thirds (67%) of bespoke applications are delivered with a "substantial" budget overrun (74% have some level of budget overrun), according to the Oracle commissioned research.
That compares to more than half (52%) of COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) applications that are delivered under budget.
According to the Oracle/PwC research, CIOs also believe a move towards standardisation (95% plan to increase their use of COTS in 2012) will create greater agility and make many of the partnerships they need with content and media companies easier to switch on or off.
It will also reduce the cost implications of maintaining restrictive legacy systems, which can prove a costly and problematic overhead in any business – particularly those facing rapid mergers and acquisitions.
