Developing IT staff key to CIO agenda...

...as is getting top IT talent into the business

Developing staff is a major consideration for CIOs

Some 90 per cent of CIOs said developing staff within the IT department was a major consideration for CIOs, according to a KPMG global survey on CIO intentions.

KPMG Global IT Advisory partner Bryan Cruickshank and co-author of the survey, From cost to value: 2010 Global Survey on the CIO Agenda, said: “Firms need to have far better integrated development programs.

“These will allow the best IT people to work on significant business-related projects as part of a broad talent development strategy," he said.

Getting top talent into the business is an issue that needs to be developed by many businesses, according to Cruickshank.

But he said he was encouraged by Tesco's recent appointment of technology chief Philip Clarke to the role of chief executive.

"For such a major multinational, with its tremendous track record of growth and an understanding of the customer, to appoint its IT manager to the role of CEO is really significant," said Cruickshank.

To really drive value into the business, something that 80 per cent of CIOs said was increasingly a focus for them, the CIO must also be close to the business and understand its needs.

"The elements of IT that are core and fundamental to the business need to be managed with a safer, less cost-focused approach, while non-core elements can be delivered as a more commoditised service," he said.

Some 65 per cent of respondents see IT as enabling business innovation; perhaps reflecting a desire of CIOs to create a more transformational role for themselves by using IT to drive innovation, thereby giving their firms a competitive advantage.

Some 68 per cent of firms said that financial crisis, risk and compliance was getting more attention in the boardroom, and 82 per cent expected compliance costs to rise between 10 and 20 per cent in the next few years.

However, Cruickshank argued that for financial services firms the current economic crisis had skewed the CIO’s transformational impact by moving compliance further up the agenda.

"IT is having to respond to fairly monolithic demands on compliance and control because of the scale of the regulatory compliance issues here, and it's often a 'must do – here today' problem," said Cruickshank. He added: "It's taking some of the focus away from CIOs who want to be able to transform their businesses."

Over 80 per cent of those surveyed said their focus was increasingly on getting value for money. Cruickshank said that the focus on value was a fairly predictable one, in light of the fact that advances in technology have made a variety of low-cost options available.

"New sourcing strategies, such as the cloud, give CIOs a wider range of options to source technology and enable services," he explained.

KPMG's survey carried out in the spring polled 4,500 CIOs worldwide, garnering 450 respondents.