I just read CIO Magazine's "The State of the CIO 2010" survey as I fly to Chicago on the way to Lansing. I will be sure to share an opinion or two in upcoming posts, but today I'll just cover some highlights.
Understanding how to make money became a higher priority for many CIOs. Included in this year's list of most critical competencies:
- Meeting or beating business goals: 30%, up 12% from 2009
- Identifying and seizing on commercial opportunities: 22%, a near four-fold increase
- External customer focus: 18%, double from last year
9 out of 10 "Expected Accomplishments" increased in importance (providing further evidence that IT is expected to contribute more while budgets remain flat). The product and customer focused contributions had some of the greatest gains:
- Improve quality of products and/or processes, from 35% to 53%
- Manage customer relationships, from 18% to 34%
- Acquire and retain customers, from 18% to 25%
Nearly two-thirds of CIOs surveyed have responsibility for a business area outside of the IT organization.
Only 43% of CIOs report to the CEO, but 70% of them have a seat at the business leadership table.
The Top Priorities for 2010:
- Aligning IT and business goals
- Controlling IT costs
- IT Governance and portfolio Management
- Business process redesign
- Leadership development/staff training
- Marketing IT's business contribution
- Rationalizing or centralizing the application portfolio
- Protecting customer data privacy
- Scaling IT globally
- Regulatory compliance
As I said, I will have a few things to say about the results, but for now, I urge you to pick up a copy of the December 15 / January 1 issue of CIO Magazine, "Acting on Opportunity." As usual, their "State of the CIO Survey" provides great data and interesting insights. http://www.cio.com/article/511240/2010_State_of_the_CIO_Today_s_Focus_for_IT_Departments_Business_Opportunities_
Steve Romero, IT Governance Evangelist