Tough time ahead for IT leadership

Eighty-five per cent of chief information officers (CIOs) see significant change coming over the next three years as they look to meet rising business expectations for IT to make the difference in their enterprise strategy, according to a worldwide survey of 1,500 CIOs by Gartner Executive Programs (EXP).

“CIOs recognise the importance of IT in ‘making the difference’ by changing business processes, attracting customers and developing new products and services,” said Mark McDonald, group vice president and head of research for Gartner EXP. “However, they are guarded in their confidence in IT’s ability to create results in these areas.”

The Gartner EXP CIO report Making the Difference: The 2008 CIO Agenda shows that while overall IT effectiveness continues to climb, CIOs face challenges in their people, their processes and IT performance. Only 27 percent of CIOs believe they have the right number of skilled people to meet business needs.

“The skills of your people count,” said McDonald. “Two-thirds of IT organisations that do not meet business expectations claim that skills are at the core of their performance issue. This issue is not expected to be resolved quickly, because only half of CIOs reporting a skills issue have building IT skills as a top-five strategy for 2008. CIOs are now expected to deliver the solutions that make the enterprise different in a way that matters to company performance and customer satisfaction. That is a tall order requiring CIOs to think differently about their role in 2008 and beyond.”