However, issues such as Governance and Cloud Computing remain troubling issues on the horizon.
Despite all the talk of recession, survival and cost control, 71% of CIOs claimed to be either fairly or very optimistic about the broader business outlook, contrasting with 19% who remained neutral and 10% who were fairly pessimistic.
However, it was not all optimism, as CIOs were clear that there were many challenges ahead. Two-thirds of respondents said that business transformation had moved up their agenda (33% strongly). And as many as 65% of CIOs believed that business requirements in the future will change at a pace faster than the ability of the IT team to implement them. As a result of this fast changing pace, 53% also saw a growing role for “intuition” decision-making over detailed analysis in future IT planning and warned that this could only be achieved with an ever-deepening understanding of the business.
Governance and Cloud Computing Issues
On business technology issues, Governance appears to be a massive burden on
CIOs. As many as 84% of respondents believed that Governance would have to become more agile, as too often today Governance is rolled into audit and compliance, taking up enormous amounts of time from the CIO, their team and
business colleagues.
On Cloud Computing there was a clear split in opinion on whether the technology was having a major impact on the way IT was delivered; while 40% agreed (12% strongly), a fifth disagreed. CIOs in favour felt Cloud Computing provided a radical proposition, offering huge potential for change because of the arrival of mainstream broadband, virtualisation and remote management techniques. Other crucial factors to the success of the Cloud included the globalisation of the supply chain, a maturing offshore model and a difficult economic climate. Interestingly, comments from respondents in smaller companies made it clear that Cloud Computing was
something they were very ready to embrace, in the expectation of making IT
a variable cost proportionate to business levels.
Finally, 78% of respondents believed that the consumerisation of IT was
having a major influence on new ways of working, bringing with it opportunities but also security threats.