CIOs will be driven by significant business change this year
1 min read
Eighty-five percent of CIOs see significant change coming over the next three years as they are required to meet rising business expectations for IT.
That’s the key finding of a worldwide survey of 1,500 CIOs by analyst Gartner.
“CIOs recognise the importance of IT in making the difference by changing business processes, attracting customers and developing new products and services,” says Mark McDonald, group vice president and head of research for Gartner Executive Programmes.
“However, they are guarded in their confidence in IT’s ability to create results in these areas. Momentum has been building for IT to play a larger role. This year, those expectations are beginning to outpace CIO confidence to deliver. This sharpens CIOs’ concentration on IT capabilities like never before,” he warns.
“IT difference is the reason customers use when they choose a company’s products and services,” he adds. “Making the difference involves taking on additional technical risk and cost, a departure from past CIO strategies that concentrated on managing these factors. CIOs will need to become more tolerant of risk and innovation and flexible to meet changing market and customer demands.”
However, Gartner believes that CIOs are in a strong position to lead in making the difference. CIO tenure has stabilised at an average of four years and four months, explains McDonald, giving them ample time to work with executives to transform their businesses.
In addition, more than half of CIOs report having responsibilities beyond traditional IT, mostly reflecting an enhanced business leadership position – mostly related to business process improvement.
As for IT spending and priorities, Gartner finds worldwide IT budgets increasing by an average of 3.3% in this year, up slightly from 2007. Manufacturers are willing to invest in IT that delivers distinctive solutions, says McDonald. IT budgets at these companies are growing at a rate of 4.9% on average, compared with IT budgets at generic IT shops, which will rise an average of 3.1%.
Meanwhile, improving business processes is the top business priority for the fourth consecutive year, with creating new products or services moving up from the number 10 priority in 2007 to number three this year.
Interestingly, Gartner finds business intelligence the number one technology priority for the third year in a row.
