Global CIO report shows companies reducing spending on operations in favour of unlocking IT dollars for customer-facing initiatives

[PRNewswire] CIOs around the globe are re-prioritizing and finding ways to reduce spending on maintenance and operations in order to liberate precious IT dollars for new customer-facing initiatives, according to a Global CIO Report by InformationWeek Analytics (www.informationweek.com). In this survey, InformationWeek Analytics Global CIO Report examines the role of the CIO in global enterprises, and how these global CIOs are contending with the downturn - and eventual upturn - in terms of business priorities and resource allocation. A clear give-and-take battle is underway at many global enterprises between implementing strategic development plans versus tactical cost cutting and retrenchment initiatives. The research report also challenges the stubborn perception that IT in general and CIOs and their teams are cost centers rather than creators of value and accelerators of innovation.

The results were compiled from 861 responses submitted by senior IT executives in seven countries across 28 industries.

"While CIOs around the globe have many pressing initiatives to deal with - including the economic downturn - they're not going to be able to make much progress on any of those until they deal with the big, smelly, and increasingly dangerous elephant in the room: the fact that an excessive portion of their IT budget is being swallowed up by internal IT operations and maintenance and support expenses, leaving only crumbs for innovative new customer-facing projects," said Global CIO senior vice president Bob Evans. "Across industries and across the globe, CIOs are working desperately to find ways to get rid of that out-of-control elephant and begin to LTCOI: lower the cost of infrastructure."

The InformationWeek Analytics Global CIO Report identifies the common need for CIOs around the world to devote much more of their time and ideas to helping their companies grow, find new customers, and create exciting new products more quickly. The findings were based on the global nature of business, the rapidly changing tastes among customers, and the decisions technology leaders must make to compete now and into the next global business cycle.

Key findings from the Global CIO Report include:

The three top priorities cited by CIOs from around the globe: 1) working to spend less money on internal IT issues and more on external customer-facing projects; 2) developing and refining new ways to capture and communicate the business value of IT efforts and expenses on global projects; 3) shifting the internal outlooks of worldwide IT organizations to reflect global perspectives rather than domestic ones

Over half of the respondents (57%) considered consolidating global data centers a very important goal - earning the most widespread agreement among CIOs in the study. Forty-five percent are highly committed to global business in that their organizations conduct all of the following in multiple countries: customers, sourcing of services and suppliers, and operations. Another high-ranking initiative included driving global technology and process standard, with 28% of the respondents in accord. Highly global-committed enterprises are more likely to be focused on ITIL, ISO, CMM and other standards than typical global enterprises.

Among the five regions of focus in the study, CIOs in India-based enterprises are more likely to be making or driving most big business decisions in the company. Europe is less than half as likely as India to involve CIOs prior to making these decisions. This could be the consequence of a relatively more stratified management decision process in place in Europe. Tellingly, 37% of European firms in the study reported that the CIO is consulted only after most big business decisions are made, a percentage that looms much higher than the other regions apart from China.

InformationWeek 2009 Global CIO Report Reveals Companies Reducing Spending on Operations in Favor of Unlocking IT Dollars for New Customer-Facing Initiatives, Paving the Way for True Integration
see also InformationWeek Analytics Global CIO Report