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By Mel Duvall
Business
productivity and cost reduction remain top IT concerns for chief
information officers, an annual survey by the Society for Information
Management (SIM) has found.
This
marks the second consecutive year that business productivity and cost
reductions have received such a wide margin of emphasis in the survey,
according to Jerry Luftman, a Professor of Information Systems at the
Stevens Institute of Technology, who conducted the survey on behalf of
SIM.
“The
insights from the study confirm that the economic downturn is
continuing to cause a significant shift in IT priorities,” said Luftman,
who is also a former SIM executive. “It is essential to recognize how
organizations are leveraging IT during this prolonged economic
conundrum, as well as preparing for when the economy improves.”
Luftman received responses from 172 CIOs, chief technology officers, and senior IT executives at major U.S. companies for the survey.
Many
of the Top 10 IT concerns were on the list from previous years, but
their order of importance has shifted somewhat. Business agility and
speed to market, which was the No. 3 priority in 2009, jumped up to No. 2
in this year’s survey. IT and business alignment, which has long held
the No. 1 spot, came in at No. 3 this year as CIOs struggled with leaner
budgets and staffs.
Luftman
noted that a new priority, globalization, appeared on the list this
year, coming in at No. 10. Emerging markets represent some of the
biggest opportunities for many multinational companies and CIOs are
having to cope with supporting expansion into those markets. Cadbury
represents a prime example, with the company noting that in 2009 close
to 60 percent of its growth came from emerging markets.
Respondents
also indicated that virtualization and cloud computing were major new
areas for application and technologies investments in 2010, while the
most important application/technology continues to be business
intelligence.
Luftman
plans to present a comprehensive presentation on the results of the SIM
study at this year’s SIMposium conference, taking place Oct. 3 to 5 in Atlanta. The theme of this year’s event is The Charm of IT: Bringing People, Process & Technology Together.
The full ranking of the Top 10 IT Concerns from the SIM survey is as follows:
1. Business productivity and cost reduction
2. Business agility and speed to market
3. IT and business alignment
4. IT reliability and efficiency
5. Business process re-engineering
6. IT strategic planning
7. Revenue generating IT innovations
8. IT cost reduction
9. Security and privacy
10. Globalization
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