Chief information officers are losing the confidence of
their boards increasingly feel in the shadow of finance teams as
compliance issues come to the fore.
A survey of 808 CIOs worldwide, conducted by the Economist
Intelligence Unit on behalf of technology optimisation company
Mercury Interactive, found that UK CIOs are struggling to prove
their value and regain lost trust from their companies' management
boards.
The survey said many of the CIOs worldwide saw better IT governance
as key to regaining senior management's faith in IT. Yet most UK
CIOs are spending less on IT governance than their counterparts
elsewhere in Europe, the survey found.
Roger Gilheany, Mercury UK's IT governance business development
director, said, "UKCIOs are being forced to spend less on IT than
other European CIOs. Managing the people, processes and priorities
of their current and future IT is overwhelming them and rendering
them helpless to deliver further business advantage."
In the EIU survey, 70% of UK CIOs believed that the best outcome of
achieving legislative compliance would be more accurate financial
reporting, which would help to increase profits through better
governed IT.
However, a follow-up study conducted by Mercury UK found that just
26% of UK IT executives could afford to increase their IT
governance spending in 2005, compared to a European average
increase of 43%.
Only 6% of UK CIOs said they were planning to spend less on IT
governance in the future, but 54% said they were only able to spend
the same amount as at present.
In the UK, the results indicated that the cost of sustaining
existing IT systems on slimmer budgets was placing enormous
pressure on CIOs to deliver on strategic IT goals.