Collaboration through IT to beat economic downturn

PA Consulting and recruitment consultancy Harvey Nash’s annual survey of more than 360 UK CIOs and senior technology professionals appears to reveal an overwhelming majority (83%) of IT leaders agreeing that their business colleagues expect them to deliver innovation to improve competitive advantage – and that projects generating the highest returns featured more collaboration than average. Technology – to enhance operational efficiency – is also right up there, with the majority (76%) of respondents believing this is the most important business issue. Indeed, one of the most significant benefits of innovation is improvements in internal processes, with two thirds of respondents saying they’re achieving cost reductions or efficiency improvements in this way. Meanwhile, those IT functions that have invested in innovation have reaped the benefits, with innovation projects believed to have been either reasonably or very successful 80% of the time. Innovation also yielded a return on investment of 5% or more for more than half (55%) of respondents.