What is keeping chief information officers (CIOs) awake at night? Are their roles evolving in a similar fashion to their international counterparts? How badly did the economic downturn affect their ability to execute? ITWeb surveyed over 50 CIOs from top South African companies in a spread of sizes and industry sectors to find out, asking about their personal backgrounds, their strategic objectives and more. The results are below, and you can see the full data and graphs via this link.
Predictably, most of the CIOs we surveyed are highly experienced - 42% indicating over a decade of experience. More surprising was the high number suggesting that their career was due for a change: only 37% said they expected to remain in IT, with 17% looking to establish a new career in consulting, and 13% eyeing a CEO role (which includes starting their own companies).
It is interesting to note that although 17% report to CFOs, a number which is increasing, almost none aspire to hold that role themselves.
CIO transition
The transition of the CIO from a technical specialist to a business expert was strongly reflected in the responses: leadership skills, industry knowledge and strategic skills were highly ranked, while IT-specific skills were rated half as important or less.
Similarly, when asked how the performance of the CIO role was measured, business benefit and strategic alignment scored higher than traditional service-level KPIs. But 37% noted that their performance was measured equally on all factors, strategic and IT-related.
The priorities for the CIO, and the IT operation, were also strongly polarised towards business strategy. Nearly two thirds (64%) indicated that aligning IT with business was the top priority. But skills also remain top of mind - half of the responses indicated that finding the right people was their highest priority. A cluster of options stood out next - making the IT operation faster to respond, leveraging big data and exploring cloud computing.
That last option was the only specific technical field to stand out, suggesting that while cloud computing maybe be languishing in the trough of disillusionment for many CIOs, as they grapple with privacy concerns and the private/public/hybrid balance, it is very much front of mind in terms of technology strategy.
Arguments against outsourcing (including cloud) were evenly divided, with options such as "no clear benefit", "high risk", "lack of tailored solutions" and "lack of readiness" scoring very closely (34% to 37%).
The only outlier, by a huge margin at 65%, was budget constraints - raising budget as the primary inhibitor to outsourcing. Since a key promise of cloud strategies is to cut costs and shift Capex to Opex, that may highlight just how constrained IT spending is among many of the top organisations.
Budget concerns
And indeed budget concerns again topped the charts (47%) when CIOs were asked to identify the prime culprits preventing them from being effective.
Predictably, the skills shortage came up strongly again (38%), but tied for second place was a lack of executive buy-in, echoing the words of numerous analysts who have highlighted that for the CIO to become fully aligned with the business, he must have the full support of the board.
Perhaps as a result of this lack of support, concerns of a lack of strategic clarity also rated highly (35%).
Other options, such as a lack of tailored solutions or lack of internal skills, rated much lower - surprising given the emphasis on skills earlier, but suggesting a key difference: lack of skills may be inhibiting new technology deployment, but organisations are holding tightly to the skills they currently hold, running the existing infrastructure.
Tech selection
How do CIOs choose technology solutions? Given how strongly budgetary issues came up in previous questions, it was no surprise at all to see "overall value" and "cost" as the runaway winners in this question (60% and 58% respectively).
But close behind were "provable track record" (44%) and "post implementation support" (39%) - CIOs, particularly in SA, are a risk-averse bunch and the desire to be the guinea-pig for emerging technology is very low.
This is a well-known chicken-and-egg dilemma - new technology struggles for engagement until there are sufficient reference sites to demonstrate its effectiveness, but at that stage the early-adopter benefit (which often forms the core of its value proposition) is greatly diluted.
"Innovation", therefore, scored relatively low (23%) as did long-term skills availability and turnkey solutions (16%), with rapid deployment the surprise laggard at 9% - the drive for agility and rapid deployment we hear from international CIOs appears to be in its early stages locally.
Overall, the key trends emerge strongly: budget is a tremendous concern for CIOs, who are battling the double whammy of local economic downturn with the resulting weak rand making procurement of imported technology prohibitively expensive.
The lack of skills, both in technical fields and at strategic levels, is also a common concern. But across the board, CIOs are clearly aware of the role's importance and are seeking strategic alignment with the business, though many still struggle with executive support.
View the full results and graphs. What are your top concerns? Leave a comment and let us know!
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