From In The Business of Technology
Over the past few weeks some fascinating CIO survey results have been published by leading Industry players. They approach the subject matter of unlocking the State of CIO in different ways. The results are in a way do not come as much of a surprise. However, they are still very relevant, insightful and shed light on CIO priorities, focus areas as the businesses start the planning and investment cycle for 2012 and beyond. Over the period of next few days, I will attempt to summarise key highlights from these surveys with an objective of analysing and projecting the strategic CIO intent for 2012 and beyond in the concluding piece. In this post, I am trying to summarise the Harvey Nash 2011 CIO Survey.
The Harvey Nash CIO survey which is based on 2000 responses from CIOs and global IT leaders highlights that innovation is back on the agenda big way. The survey quotes, “CEOs are looking to their CIO and the technology team to deliver both internal and externally focused technology innovation to help their organisation outmanoeuvre the competition and win the future.” According to the survey most CIOs believe that to achieve the business objectives set by the CEO, technology innovation isn’t simply an option, it’s a must have. Almost three-quarters (74%) of the global CIO community believe that if they don’t innovate and embrace new technology their company will lose market share.
In terms of overall priorities, driving revenue growth is now a priority for 37% of CIOs while enabling business change is a focus for 44%. A renewed focus by many organisations on market share growth, profit and new product development is providing a greater commercial role for some CIOs after the recession. In 2010 almost three quarters of global CIOs (74%) listed cost saving as a top priority, today only 67% recognise it as their top issue. These results suggest the CIO is being asked to fulfil a more complex dual role where they have to maintain the tight cost control and departmental fitness achieved during the recession years while also ensuring sufficient technology capacity and flexibility exists to enable the organisation to pursue growth.
The survey highlights that outsourcing remains a strong theme as almost one third of global CIOs (28%) will spend up to a quarter of their entire IT budget this year on outsourced activity, up 5% on last year. More than one in ten global CIOs will devote more than 50% of their IT budget to outsourcing. Investment on outsourcing in the next twelve months is also due to increase for 45% of global CIOs, up 9% on 2010, while an additional 43% will maintain spending at current levels. CIOs are increasingly partnering with a wide range of suppliers with 39% expecting to increase their dependence on multi-sourcing in the next twelve months. This multi-sourcing trend is having an impact on the demand for skills and flexible labour. For the CIO, the importance of managing strategic relationships with third party suppliers, often from overseas, has emerged as a key skill in 2011 with 36% of respondents identifying it as an essential ability, up 12% from 24% last year.
In the next post, I will attempt to summarise the IBM 2011 CIO Survey.
