It’s CIO Vs. CEO
It’s CIO Vs. CEO
February 16, 2007: According the Gartner, there is a wide and dangerous gap occurring between the CEOs business near-term expectation of IT, and what the CIO is actually planning on delivering.
At the executive level, Gartner reveals the average short-term goals of a CEO centre around improved business processes, cost control, increased business and revenue growth as well as improved workforce effectiveness. For CIOs, short-term goals are obviously all about improving IT, but often fail to reflect the expectations of the board.
Gartner makes its revelations after undertaking a worldwide survey of over 1,400 CIOs The research predominantly seeks to identity key CIO issues across the globe. Sampling CIOs with an average IT budget of $90 million, Gartner says the study represents an $100 billion worth of IT spending.
The survey finds that in the short-term, CIOs are looking to improve the quality of IT services and governance, demonstrate the business value of IT and further improve business skills in IT. It’s a far cry from what executives actually expect, that is for IT to deliver short and long-term competitive performance rather than just improving on the value of IT.
Gartner suggests that such a disconnection occurs predominantly due to the fact that IT strategies are often internally focused, a factor that could place CIO’s and an enterprise’s IT strategy at risk. It’s a conundrum CIO’s should seek to sort out by reprioritising their work and adjusting it to meet executive expectations and avoid tension later on.
Mark McDonald, group vice president and head of research for Gartner EXP believes the best means for CIOs to address the gap is to concentrate on leveraging information to build competitiveness. “This also corresponds to the continued importance of business intelligence in 2007,” he says. “As such, CIOs will continue to be responsible for IT, the mechanism. They can further play a greater role in leveraging information, the understanding that drives performance and innovation.”
Overall, Gartner says the results reiterate the point that CIO success in 2007 needs to move the enterprise forward. “CIOs cannot rely on traditional actions – such as improving operational efficiency, reducing IT costs and automation that lead to commoditization – to meet executive expectations,” says Mark McDonald.
When it comes to worldwide IT budgets, Gartner says they look set to expand by an average of three percent in 2007. The figure doesn’t sound like much, but it’s slightly higher than 2006 which revealed a 2.7 percent increase.