The UK's IT leaders are more confident than ever that
communication between IT and the board is improving.
As governance, e-commerce and global rationalisation of
businesses drives IT higher up the business agenda, lines of
communication look to have opened up with the top level of business
management.
The finding comes from Computer Weekly's latest quarterly CIO
Index survey of the UK's top IT management. It found that 37% of IT
directors agreed strongly that communication with the board was
improving, up from 27% in November last year.
And the improvement may in part be the result of better
alignment between IT and business processes. The survey found that
72% of CIOs agreed that business processes were well integrated
with IT systems, up from 67% in November.
This better alignment between IT and the business was reflected
in IT chiefs' confidence that IT is delivering more demonstrable
business value than a year ago. In November, 31% of respondents
agreed strongly with this statement, compared to 38% in the latest
survey.
Similarly, more CIOs agreed strongly that IT would be providing
more demonstrable business value in a year's time - 55% in the
latest survey, up from 49% in November.
Meanwhile, pressure on IT managers to spend time on activities
that do not add value to the business appears to be easing. In the
latest research, 58% agreed that software licensing was taking up
less of their management time than a year ago.
By contrast, in November last year 40% of IT directors said they
were spending less management time on software licence issues than
a year earlier, and 66% said suppliers were becoming less
accommodating to user needs.
This year, IT directors have also been finding it easier to
convince the business to invest in IT activities that mitigate
risks but do not necessarily boost business performance. The
percentage of IT leaders who agreed strongly with the statement
that IT security is adequately funded jumped from 22% in November
to 32% in the latest survey.
Read previous CIO Indices
www.computerweekly.com/cioindex
Related article:
Communication narrows IT divide
Related article:
CIO Index surveys: What CIOs want
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