KUALA LUMPUR, 27 OCTOBER 2009 – The use of analytics to support decision-making is now top priority for CIOs, according to a new global study from technology giant IBM.
Speaking during the ASEAN launch of the study in Kuala Lumpur, IBM ASEAN partner, leader application innovation services, global business services, Scott Hutchinson said the leveraging of analytics to gain competitive advantage was singled out by more than four out of five (83 per cent) survey respondents at a global level, with an even higher (87 per cent) rating at the ASEAN level.
Hutchinson said the Global CIO Study 2009, which is part of the IBM C-Suite study series, included more than 2,500 face-to-face interviews, conducted from January to April 2009. “The study represents different-sized organisations in 78 countries and 19 industries, 86 in ASEAN.”
“CIOs are investing in business analytics capabilities to help them improve decision-making at all levels,” said Pat Toole, CIO of IBM. “In addition, in this challenging economy, CIOs understand that analytics can be key to new growth markets, whether it’s new ways to manage a utility grid or smarter healthcare systems. Managing and leveraging new intelligence through analytics is something that today’s CIO is pursuing to gain competitive advantage in these new markets.”
CIOs playing more strategic role
“The study reinforces the increasingly strategic role that CIOs are playing as visionary leaders and as drivers of innovation and financial growth,” Hutchinson said. “With an increased focus on data analytics, the survey also revealed that data reliability and security have emerged as increasingly urgent concerns, with 71 per cent of global CIOs (ASEAN: 76 per cent) planning to make additional investments in risk management and compliance.”
Hutchinson said that as the role of the CIO itself transforms, so do the types of projects they lead across enterprises, which will allow them to spend less time and resources on running internal infrastructure, and more on transformation to help their companies increase revenue. “CIOs are transforming their infrastructure to focus more on innovation and business value, rather than simply running IT.”
“In the study, CIOs also identified the top visionary projects 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, virtualisation and green IT, service-oriented architectures (SOA), service management, and cloud computing. CIOs are also 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,” he said.
In addition, the study showed that global CIOs are set on the path to lower energy costs, with 76 per cent (ASEAN: 63 per cent) undergoing or planning virtualisation projects. Other findings included:
• Seventy-six per cent of global CIOs (ASEAN: 74 per cent) anticipate building a strongly centralised infrastructure in the next five years. More than half of CIOs are expecting to implement completely standardised, low-cost business processes.
• Even as they build these standardised low-cost infrastructures, global CIOs are able to focus 55 per cent of their time on activities that drive innovation and growth, whereas traditional IT tasks such as infrastructure and operations management now consume only 45 per cent of the global CIOs’ time
ASEAN CIOs better accepted at senior levels
“Clearly the role of the CIO is changing dramatically,” Hutchinson said. “On the one hand, they are trying to standardise 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.”
He added that ASEAN CIOs are more highly regarded as key members of senior management, defining business strategy. “ASEAN CIOs here closely mirror their global counterparts in terms of specific characteristics. CIOs in both ranked highly in several roles, as a visionary, value creator, business leader, pragmatist, and cost cutter, though ASEAN CIOs are considered less of an IT manager, than that seen at the global level.”
“In ASEAN, CIOs are more often included as and are better accepted as members of the senior management teams as compared to the global CIOs and as a result, are more actively involved in all aspects of setting the business strategy, especially with their fellow leaders, including presenting on or deciding upon the business strategy,” he said.
