Next year must see corporations return to IT investment strategies after two years of using IT primarily as an operational cost-cutting savings measure, says international research firm Gartner.
Gartner presented the preliminary findings of its Worldwide Chief Information Officer Survey at its annual ITxpo symposium in France this week. The survey shows a return of confidence in IT budgets, with CIOs expecting modest growth of 3.4% in 2004.
The survey showed that only 12% of CIOs believe their most important role in 2004 will be cost-cutting and restructuring, but 43% believe the biggest change in their department`s role will be to enable better business processes.
"The challenge for IT is to provide the means to extend business capabilities, and a return in focus on business processes, enabled by the emergence of new software platforms and architectures, can achieve this," the Gartner report says.
Gartner terms this change in focus as "Business Process Fusion" and says the transformation of business processes is a major step towards building the real-time enterprise.
The research firm says the growing focus on business processes and the maturing of key technologies will make Business Process Fusion a key driver for IT investments in a majority of the Global 2000 by 2007.
"The future will not be about automating existing processes using IT, or trying to achieve more with less, it`s about transforming the processes of your business," says Simon Hayward, Gartner research fellow. "Investments to further automate operational processes are beneficial, but produce diminishing returns. There is little point in doing more of the same."
Hayward says by using technology to link previously autonomous management and operational processes, companies can speed up their decision-making, respond faster to changes and make more effective use of their assets.
"IT now offers the means to extend your business capabilities, but this is not being exploited," he says.
Gartner says Business Process Fusion builds on the maturing capabilities of systems integration and systems access technology to support the creation of new processes that increase the speed and flow of corporate information. It enables planning, optimisation, simulation, and other performance management activities to take place on a broader scale than previously.
Gartner says it is achievable now because companies have already invested in operational systems that are pervasively connected and able to capture core transactional data.
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