Gap between excellent and bog-standard CIOs growing

An Accenture report looks at the widening gap between high-performing IT leaders and those that struggle

There is an increasing gap between high performing IT organisations and those that struggle to improve IT's role in creating enterprise value, according to Accenture's latest annual IT Performance Research Study.

The research indicates that IT organisations that have shown an ability to differentiate their core capabilities during the economic downturn are now in a better position to deliver more value.

"The widening performance gap between high performers and other IT organisations should serve as a wake-up call for the underperformers to improve core capabilities – or risk being marginalised by business leadership," it said.

"CIOs can accept a role as a caretaker for the business, or they can begin taking steps to improve the agility, innovation and execution of their IT organisations in order to establish a stronger partnership with the business."

According to the research, key differences between high and low performing IT organisations include:

• High performers have web-enabled 42 per cent more of their customer interactions, and 93 per cent more of their supplier interactions.

• High performing IT departments are 44 per cent more likely to recognise the strategic role IT plays in customer satisfaction.

• They are also eight times more likely to habitually measure the benefits obtained from strategic IT initiatives.

• Rather than maintaining existing applications, high performers spend 29 per cent more annually on developing and implementing new ones.

• They are also twice as likely to view workforce performance as a priority.

"We're moving from what I would call an order-taker mentality to a business partnership," said one CIO respondent.

"Our role is really to drive business change through process and technology," he added.

Accenture said the recession has brought the best out of many CIOs. "None of these CIOs have let the economic downturn and smaller IT budgets that followed get in their way. In fact, they pushed their agendas even harder," it said.