CIOs around the world are facing high levels of uncertainty as 2015 gets underway, according to a global survey by Gartner.
The 2015 survey showed that issues experienced by CIOs are far from universal and real differences exist at both a regional and country level.
“The only certainty for CIOs seems to be the unstoppable advancement of digitalisation,” says Dave Aron, vice-president and Gartner Fellow. “Government, companies and our personal lives are being more deeply penetrated by digital capabilities, opportunities and threats. Digitalisation represents both a massive opportunity and new and heightened levels of threat for all countries and companies, and CIOs are facing new, more challenging and more exciting circumstances as digital moves to centre stage.”
Gartner has been conducting a global CIO survey for more than 10 years, with the 2015 survey reaching 2 810 respondents in 84 countries, and representing nearly $400-billion in IT budgets and a combined $12-trillion in public sector budgets and private-sector revenue.
CIOs in the US report an IT budget increase of 0,9 % for 2015. While the average growth in IT budgets is marginally smaller in the US than the rest of the world (0,9% versus 1,1%), only one of eight CIOs in the US is facing a decreasing IT budget.
Looking beyond the Nexus of Forces (cloud, mobility, social and big data) and into the next generation of disruptive “SMART” technologies – sensors, maker machines (3D print), augmented humans, robotics and thinking machines – the survey revealed that for every category, the percentage of US CIOs that says “not relevant right now” is larger than their global counter parts.
However, when looking at the number of companies that either have already invested or are actively experimenting, US-based CIOs are – with the exception of the Internet of Things (IoT) – ahead of their global peers as those who have picked up on these technologies and have moved to either experiment with them or deployed them to a larger degree than their global peers.
The survey results also indicate that CIOs in the US said that they are taking a larger role as digital leaders (54% versus 43% of global CIOs), they see themselves spending more time as visionary leaders than their global peers (23% versus 21%) – yet only 34% of CIOs in the US has a chief operating officer (COO), whereas 53% globally have a COO.
“While US-based CIOs seem to consider themselves as digital leaders, the survey points to a number of areas where the reality is that US-based CIOs trail their global counterparts,” says Aron. “US-based CIOs must critically reflect upon their role and actions as a leader and ensure that there is a match between their desired role, their ability to deliver on that role as well as how the rest of the IT organisation is set up to deliver on their digital role.”
CIOs in China revealed an IT budget increase of 8,5%, way above the global average of 1,1%. Historical data shows that the IT budget at organisations in China is much lower than the global average. This means that the high increase of IT budget is coming from a very low base.
While globally 47% of CIOs believe they have the digital leadership responsibility for their business, only 33% of CIOs in China do. This indicates that most CIOs in China are still seeing themselves as traditional CIOs taking care of traditional IT responsibilities (such as to support the business process running), and letting other senior executives take the digital leadership roles. CIOs in China should be more proactive and devote themselves to the digital world so that they can demonstrate their value to the business.
A generally positive outlook is translating to growth in average IT spend in the UK and Ireland, with CIOs expecting to increase IT budgets by 1,4% in 2015. In addition to this increase in the IT budget, there is an increasing amount of investment in IT occurring across the enterprise, with more than 21% of IT investment taking place outside of the official IT budget. As CIOs emerge from a long period of cost-cutting and restricted IT budgets, there is a renewed focus on strategic investments in information and technology that will enable business growth.
One measure of CIO leadership and influence in the business is the amount of time spent with senior business stakeholders compared with the amount of time managing the IT organisation. CIOs should aim to spend a majority of their time working with the rest of the business to ensure that the value of information and technology is understood and the right investments are made.
In 2015, leading CIOs will spend less than 40% of their time running the IT organisation, choosing instead to spend time with other CxOs (27% of their time), business unit leaders (18 per cent of their time) and external customers (16% of their time).
CIOs in the UK and Ireland also show a progressive attitude toward emerging SMART technologies. A significant minority of CIOs have moved beyond monitoring the trends to actively investing and deploying solutions. This is especially true for robotics (9%) and IoT (10%).
In the 2015 survey, Latin America had the lowest increase in regional forecast budgets in comparison with other regions (0,4%), indicating a cautious approach to new expenditures when compared with the previous year. Such a small increase in IT budgets also suggests that companies will seek cost-optimisation efforts in order to free some money for new IT expenditures that might be necessary.
Investments in the public cloud are important for companies that wish to thrive in the digital business era. Although less relevant than for global respondents, more than 50% of companies in Latin America already consider infrastructure as a service either as a first option or include the cloud as one of their options before making final decisions.
Likewise, investments in mobile applications are increasingly becoming the first priority when enhancing or designing new applications.
“Mobile first” has become the main strategy for 25% of Latin American CIOs when dealing with customer-facing applications. In a mobile-driven digital world, this is an immediate call to action that CIOs and organisations should review their development strategies and priorities to start considering mobile as at least a secondary option.
