Gaps Between an Organisation's Readiness and EP
By CXOtoday Staff
Mumbai, Jul 23, 2008

Unisys Corporations recent research, involving 1,200 organizations worldwide, shows significant gaps between executives business and IT goals and their estimation of their organizations ability to achieve those objectives.

During the research, when asked to state the most important business objectives, the respondents to the Unisys study uniformly placed priority on customer-focused and customer-dependent goals, such as acquiring new customers, building closer relationships with existing customers, developing new products and services, growing sales and revenue and reaching new markets.

About 62 percent of respondents expect that they will encourage innovation or be market leaders at supporting it within three years. Yet 70 percent said that currently they have no support for innovation, or their capability is only evolving or moderate

In describing IT management practices, 52 percent of respondents expect to treat IT as an investment or differentiator in three years, however 72 percent said that they currently treat it as a support function, a means to enhance productivity or a capital expense.

The research also states that 67 percent of respondents expect to have integrated, collaborative communications with critical stakeholders within three years, nevertheless only 32 percent said they have such a capability now. While only 51 percent of respondents have a formal, mature IT sourcing strategy and model today, 75 percent expect to have one in three years.

Also, 60 percent of respondents currently rate their security model as non-existent, limited or moderate nonetheless 75 percent expect their security model to be state-of-the-art in three years.

Cavuoto, vice president (global industries and worldwide strategic services) of Unisys said,"The research provides a valuable snapshot of where organizations stand today relative to some significant areas of business and IT management, and affords a valuable tool for other businesses to assess their current states and aspirations. They're spending 80 percent of their IT budget on infrastructure maintenance and funding innovation only as an afterthought. These strictures have been imposed largely by outmoded views of IT as a cost center, not an investment."

These ratings indicated a significant gap between their current readiness and expected performance. And to fill these gaps, Unisys has introduced modernization benchmark service. The service is based on a workshop approach and helps clients measure the organization s capabilities in six dimensions. These dimensions are business resilience, collaborative business, IT as a business enabler, open business and IT, green business and business execution.


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