The application of IT within a company needs to adapt to business needs, or be left out in the cold. However, as IT increasingly proves to be contributing to the bottom line, this division will increasingly receive bigger budgets.
Peter Sondergaard, Gartner senior VP of research, said IT professionals do not have time to waste in terms of ensuring information communication`s relevance to a business.
Addressing delegates at the 2006 Gartner Symposium in Cape Town, he told delegates they "have a decision to make now".
Globally, information communication is beginning to be seen as having an effect on industry again, he said. There is no longer any question of technology`s importance, he said. However, IT now needs to enable companies to grow in the face of difficult global challenges such as terrorism and a rising oil price.
Companies are recognising the value of technology, he said. A recent survey of CIOs indicated the global IT budget this year would be 2.7% bigger than that of the previous year. However, some investments - that would previously be considered IT - are now been accounted for in other budgets, making real technology spend difficult to quantify.
Those in charge of ICT at organisations are facing the challenge of proving the worth of their systems, he said. IT must support growth; it needs to manage enterprise-wide costs and must enable the competitiveness of a company.
In return, it will receive more in the way of investment. Gartner, having examined several companies, found where IT was contributing to the bottom line, this was being reciprocated. Moreover, the tenure of CIOs has gone from two to three years in 2000 to five years now.
Changing skills set
The move to more business-oriented IT departments will also be felt by IT professionals within organisations, says Sondergaard. In some instances, the way technology is deployed will eliminate the need for certain skills.
By 2010, the market demand for certain IT specialist skills will be shrinking by 10% year-on-year. IT professionals will need to deepen their skills base, and by the end of the decade, 60% of IT professionals will have taken on business-oriented skills, he said.
However, locally, the pool of IT skills will continue to lag the rest of the world. This situation is likely to worsen as large corporations enter the country, which may dampen government`s aim to reach 6% growth in economic output by 2010, Sondergaard added.
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