Peter Dinham
Tuesday, 15 September 2009 10:51
IT Industry -
Market
Page 2 of 2
Australian and New Zealand Smarter Planet Leader for IBM,
Matt English, said today that CIOs are “sharpening the focus on
building smarter infrastructures and improving business efficiency,”
and he added “this study provides insight into critical strategies for
both today and the future, whether it’s transforming organisational
processes or taking advantage of client and market opportunities across
the region and around the globe.”
Other key findings of the IBM survey include:
• CIOs in A/NZ businesses enjoy more influence on business
strategy when compared with the global results, 77 percent of ANZ CIOs
hold a seat on the senior management team, while only 54 percent have
the privilege of this influence across the world
• 78 percent of ANZ CIOs (76 percent globally) anticipate
building a strongly centralised infrastructure in the next five years.
Furthermore, 53 percent of ANZ CIOs (56 per cent globally) are
expecting to implement completely standardised, low-cost business
processes
• Even as they build these standardised low cost
infrastructures, CIOs are able to focus 55 percent of their time on
activities that drive innovation and growth – 45 percent in ANZ
• The remaining 45 percent (55 percent in ANZ) is spent on
essential, more traditional CIO tasks related to managing the ongoing
technology environment, including reducing IT costs, mitigating
enterprise risks and leveraging automation to lower costs elsewhere in
the business
• 85 percent of ANZ CIOs said they believe their customer and
business partner relationships and integration will be key to success,
while globally almost 68 percent of respondents agreed partner
collaboration will drive success
According to Matt English, CIOs spend an impressive 55 percent of their
time on activities that drive innovation, whereas “traditional IT tasks
like infrastructure and operations management now make up only 45
percent.
“This confirms that CIOs are transforming their infrastructure to focus
more on innovation and business value, rather than simply running IT.”
In the study, IBM found that CIOs also identified the top visionary
projects that they are working on now or foresee implementing in the
future, ranging from process improvement to taking advantage of
technologies that can provide immediate and long-term financial impact.
“The study also confirmed that CIOs are focusing on mobility solutions
and unified communications, collaboration and social networking tools,
and Web 2.0 projects, to enable more effective communications for
employees, customers, and partners,” English said.
“The role of the CIO continues to change dramatically. Not only are
CIOs trying to standardise routine processes and infrastructure,
they’re working to implement technologies to drive innovation and
growth.
“The study reveals that CIOs are making the biggest impact on their
organisations business by engaging directly with the business, spending
more time on innovation, and by being active members of the executive
team. CIOs are building new business models such as smart grids and
smarter transportation and are looking to apply technologies in new
kinds of innovation for their companies. These findings are consistent
with what IBM is seeing in the marketplace, around both standardised
technology and new business models.”