According to the latest IBM CIO Leadership Forum Survey, 84% of CIOs believe that technology plays a vital role in transforming their businesses. On the other hand, the remaining 16% feel that their companies are taking full advantage of IT s potential.
The research also indicates that in order to ensure organizations growth and business innovation, there should be a cordial relationship between the CIO and the CEO. The study, conducted with more than 170 CIOs from leading companies around the world, highlighted the strategic role that CIOs play in technology to generate innovation and growth for their companies.
The IBM 2006 Global CEO study indicated that CEOs who incorporated business and technology reported greater customer satisfaction, speed, and flexibility than their less integrated peers. According to the latest IBM Global CEO study conducted among 750 CEOs, 80% of the CEOs considered business and technology integration to be important. However, only 45% felt that the 2 were integrated to a large extent in their enterprise.
The study also revealed that CIOs want to build stronger relationships with CEOs and other C-level business leaders. CIOs feel that their enhanced involvement in strategy is important. 92% of CIOs feel that it is either important or critically important to have greater influence and impact as business leaders, and 86% recognize an opportunity to work with other leaders to create and shape strategic options. They are also finding their way into companies executive committees, which is an acknowledgement on the part of senior management that IT matters. However, CIOs continue to express a desire to contribute to major growth and innovation initiatives.
The CIOs survey indicates that the CEOs and other business leaders should recognize the strategic role that IT plays within an organization. CEOs and other business leaders can make 4 changes to enable CIOs and their IT organizations to make a stronger contribution to core business. These are measurement, strategy, organization, and talent.
Measurement involves rewarding CIOs for contributing to growth, innovation, and people. Strategy includes engaging CIOs in the strategy process as early as possible. Organization helps CIOs in undertaking process transformation, and gives them consent to create organizational readiness for IT. Talent provides CIOs with an opportunity to develop broader skills and leadership competencies.
The role of the CIO is dramatically changing. IT is becoming an enabler and a catalyst for innovation. CIOs are embracing this new model to provide strategic business direction, and offer new ideas on how to align IT in a way that delivers business value. In order for CIOs to be successful, consistent business and technology integration is crucial to innovation.
CEOs are increasingly changing their business models to include CIOs in the business side of the equation. And IBM's analysis shows that companies which emphasize more on business model innovation, experience better operating margin growth (over a 5-year period) than their peers. This correlates to the global IBM CIO Leadership Forum Survey, in which more than 85% of the CIOs agreed that they should be viewed as not only IT experts but also business leaders.
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