CIOs around the world are embracing digital transformation to reinvent their organizations’ processes and systems, according to a BT survey of 1030 senior IT decision makers based in eleven countries.
The impact of digital is such that the importance of the CIO at boardroom level continues to rise; 72 per cent of senior IT decision makers say that the CIO has become more central in the boardroom over the last two years and 43 per cent of CIOs say that they now spend more time dealing with corporate issues.
The flip side of this trend is that CIOs find themselves increasingly challenged to find the time to develop creative solutions for the business. Close to two-thirds (61 per cent) of senior IT decision makers feel that the CIO is spending more time maintaining current IT systems than searching for new solutions. That is a drop from 2014, when the figure was 74 per cent, but shows that despite ambitions for digital transformation, the CIO still has to deal with legacy systems.
The BT CIO report 2016 also shows that CIOs are clear on the most disruptive technology trends – cloud, mobility and collaboration, and data. According to the report, a fifth of global organisations are already completely cloud-centric, and a further 46 per cent have more than half their applications and infrastructure in the cloud.
With the CIO acting as a catalyst, 76 per cent of large organisations across the world have, or plan to adopt, a ‘multi-speed’ approach to technology-led initiatives. This involves more creativity, more flexibility and a more dynamic operating model. According to BT’s research, 65 per cent of CIOs are also noting rapid changes in the KPIs measuring their own performance, with a clear trend putting digital transformation at the centre of all their activities.
In 72 per cent of organisations covered by BT’s latest research, multiple teams are sourcing and commissioning core IT products and services without the involvement of the IT function.
The latest research suggests that the IT function is growing more comfortable with providing an overall enablement role, with a particular focus on data security, a suitably powerful infrastructure and ensuring there are no duplications of effort across the organisation. These changing responsibilities underlie the new role of the digital CIO which operates horizontally, across the business as an enabler.
Responding to digital transformation’s remarkable acceleration, BT will announce in the coming weeks and months a new wave of innovative services, accelerating the execution of its Cloud of Clouds portfolio strategy. They will cover the technologies identified by the BT CIO report 2016 as being the most disruptive: cloud, mobility and collaboration, and data.
These new launches will cover all areas of the Global Services portfolio, and include real time big data analysis capabilities put to the service of customer relationship management; expansion of cloud connectivity as well as additional software defined networks and consultancy capabilities; new ways of customising cloud services to meet the needs of individual organisations and industry sectors; and new security and professional services capabilities will accompany those investments, empowering CIOs to make the bold decisions required on their digital journey.
“The pace of digital change is creating new opportunities for our customers and those opportunities require quick responses. The role of the digital CIO is one of the most demanding in business. They need to be strategic, creative, growth-minded and cost conscious,” says Luis Alvarez, CEO of Global Services.