CIOs to play key role in the economic recovery – new PA survey
If IT is to play a key role in the economic recovery, CIOs must deliver both successful innovation and improved operational efficiencies, rather than doing one or the other. That is the message from the latest annual 'CIO Survey' of 2,655 senior IT professionals from private and public companies, conducted across the UK, US and Europe by PA and Harvey Nash.
To achieve this, according to our research, CIOs need to adopt a more commercial role, exploit innovative business models enabled by disruptive technologies such as Cloud, and manage a mature multi-source technology environment.
The survey shows that recession and widespread lack of capital has split CIOs into two distinct groups: those who have recently had to focus on cutting costs and had their budgets decreased, and those who have had their budgets increased and are actively looking to invest, innovate and overtake competitors.
IT expert Jonathan Crews advises that organisations cannot simply fall into just one of these camps:
"The emphasis for CIOs has to be on cutting costs first, and fast, to free up budget and resource to invest in innovation, not merely doing one or the other. Even those CIOs who already have sufficient liquidity to invest run the risk of failing to achieve the maximum possible return on their investments, if basic operational efficiencies have not been achieved first."
Jonathan adds: “In a market where capital and liquidity is an organisation’s lifeblood, and where scrutiny of all departments’ activities is only likely to grow, the ability to demonstrate the effectiveness of your investments is absolutely paramount. Business leaders really ought to be demonstrating their commercial value, even if not being directly asked for it.”
