CEOs have shifted their position and are releasing funds to CIOs that have innovations for mobile users and revenue generation ideas, finds the CIO Survey 2012 from Harvey Nash, the recruitment and outsource services provider.
The global survey found that 56% of CIOs are launching projects that make money for their organisations rather than saving money as the CEO’s priorities switch towards growth, emerging markets and new technologies. CIOs report they are seen as the key to unlocking potential growth that organisations have been starved off since the banking crisis led to an economic downturn.
The Harvey Nash CIO Survey, one of the most reliable surveys of CIO sentiment, found that globally 71% of CIOs believe their organisation needs to "embrace new technology otherwise they will lose market share". Mobile technology is cited by the survey respondents as the driver from both customers and CEOs. The research shows that 58% of CIOs responding are actively developing mobile and tablet applications and 20% are very active in development.
This rush to mobile is in turn giving CIOs a budget increase as 44% reported that their budget had increased for 2012, an increase from 39% last year. Not only are technology budgets increasing, the CIO is graining overall control of their IT spend. Last year seven per cent had control over the majority of their spend, this has increased to 11% in 2012.
Outsourcing demand will increase the survey by outsourcing and recruitment service provider Harvey Nash found. As budgets and demands increase for CIOs they will need to increase the level of development skills available to them with 46% of the respondents saying this will drive an increase in outsourcing for their organisations. Datacentre and maintenance was the second driver for outsourcing according to 49% of the respondents.
"There is a clear link between the higher value outsourced activity, like software development, and the skills shortage experienced by CIOs," Harvey Nash says in its report. "The CEO demands their teams prepare for growth, CIOs have to find the skilled resources to meet the demand from the business."
The survey also found that the representation of women to be "highly unrepresentative of the population at large". Ninety three per cent of respondents to the global CIO survey are male.
But not only are there too few female CIOs, the overall number of women IT workers is very low, 24% of CIOs responding have no women in their technical teams. Yet 51% believe women can improve relationships between the business and IT.
"For every woman Harvey Nash recruits into a CIO role there are nine men placed in a similar position," the company states in its report.
Not only are there too few women, their reporting line was found to be less strategic than men with 41% reporting to the CEO, compared to 48% of male CIOs. This is in turn leading to greater churn amongst senior women IT leaders, the recruitment firm claims. In the last two years 16% of women have changed role.
"Women CIOs are pursuing more change programmes than their male counterparts, they are improving the success rate of projects and using technology to engage better with customers, while men focus more on delivering consistent and stable IT performance for the organisation," Harvey Nash state.
Pay scales for female CIOs are also lower with the global average of $201,944 (€157,195) compared to $204,854 (€159,463) for a male and 73% of women have been working with a pay freeze compared to 61% of men.
IDG News Service
Subscribers 0
Fans 0
Followers 0
Followers