A global study of chief information officers (CIOs) has identified the implementation of business intelligence and analytics as a top priority for CIOs, while 65 per cent of UK organisations are ready to embrace cloud computing over the next five years – higher than the global average and nearly double the number of CIOs who said they would embrace cloud in the same study two years ago.
IBM carried out a survey of 3,000 CIOs, conducting face-to-face interviews with IT leaders from diverse organisations in 71 countries and 18 industries.
The study, entitled "The Essential CIO", revealed that four out of five CIOs (83 per cent) see business intelligence and analytics as top priorities for their businesses as they seek ways to act on the growing amounts of data at their disposal.
CIOs are also increasing their focus on mobile computing to keep pace with technological innovation. Mobile computing and mobility solutions are now seen by nearly three-quarters of CIOs (74 per cent) as a game-changer for their businesses. However, the increase in focus is a modest one, as in 2009 this figure was 68 per cent.
Other trends identified by the survey include risk management, cited as a top issue by 80 per cent of CIOs in the finance and banking industries, while mobility solutions were of most interest to organisations in the travel (91 per cent), media and entertainment (86 per cent) and energy and utilities (82 per cent) industries.
"This study carefully tracks the evolution of both the CIO and the role of IT in driving business growth," said Jeanette Horan, vice president, enterprise business transformation at IBM.
"The thoughts and aspirations, challenges and insights shared in this report provide compelling evidence that IT is no longer simply an enabler of business.
"Increasingly, it is the business itself, as evidenced by the dramatic rise in importance of the CIO as strategic thinker and partner in business growth," she said.
Our IT Leaders Campaign launches later this week.
2011 is proving to be another big year for the cloud, and CA Technologies latest Channel Index survey also found that more than 70 percent of its UK partners are expecting a rise in their cloud spending. This has the potential to save enterprises across Europe over €77 billion throughout this year.
The results of both studies indicate a shift towards approaching IT using “cloud thinking”. The primary incentives for adopting cloud computing, such as saving money and gaining greater cost control, increasing efficiency and the desire to work with the latest technologies are now being recognised by UK organisations.
Of course, we need to remember that with this shift comes a growing need for sophisticated management and security, allowing enterprises to change how they think about IT to reap the full rewards that cloud computing offers – agility, efficiency and scalability.
Colin Bannister, CTO and Vice President of Technical Sales, CA Technologies, UK & Ireland
Posted by: Colin Bannister, CTO and Vice President of Technical Sales, CA Technologies, UK & Ireland 18 May 2011
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