In "The New Voice of the CIO," a survey of more than 2,500 chief information officers (CIOs), more than four out of five (83%) respondents identified business intelligence and analyticsthe ability to see patterns in vast amounts of data and extract actionable insightsas the way they will enhance their organizations' competitiveness.
The survey also revealed that data reliability and security have emerged as increasingly urgent concerns, with 71% of CIOs planning to make additional investments in risk management and compliance.
Among other key findings of the survey:
- CIOs also are continuing on the path to dramatically lower energy costs, with 76% undergoing or planning virtualization projects.
- Seventy-six percent of CIOs anticipate building a strongly centralized infrastructure in the next five years. More than half of CIOs are expecting to implement completely standardized, low-cost business processes.
- Even as they build these standardized low-cost infrastructures, CIOs are able to focus 55% of their time on activities that drive innovation and growth, whereas traditional IT tasks such as infrastructure and operations management now consume only 45% of their time.
The Changing Role of the CIO
CIOs are transforming their infrastructure to focus more on innovation and business value, rather than simply running IT, according to IBM. In the study, CIOs 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, such as: business intelligence and analytics; virtualization and green IT; service-oriented architectures; service management; and cloud computing.
CIOs also 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, according to IBM.
"Clearly the role of the CIO is changing dramatically," Toole said. "On the one hand they are trying to standardize routine processes and simplify their existing IT infrastructure to reduce costs, hence their growing interest in technologies such as cloud computing. On the other hand, given the central role that today's CIO performs in driving new business models, whether it's a smart grid system, an intelligent transport system or a transparent food supply chain, it's not surprising that the amount of time they are now spending on driving new kinds of growth for their companies is growing considerably."
The study, which represents the insights and vision of CIOs from 78 countries, 19 industries and organizations of every size, is the largest face-to-face survey of CIOs ever conducted, according to IBM.
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