Back in January, in collaboration with Chase Zander, I started a process of consulting with senior IT managers to develop a list of the top business issues that they faced. This exercise was intended to shape the content of a IT Director Forum that we were planning. This will now be happening on 26th March in Birmingham (for further information see this post).
The Top Business Issues faced by CIOs / IT Directors
Back then, I promised to share some of the findings from this study. These are summarised in the above diagram. The input was based on public comments made by a selection of senior people on the CIO group of LinkedIn.com, plus e-mails sent to me on the topic and feedback received by Chase Zander.
A textual version of the data appeas below (sample size ~60):
| Issue | % of Votes | ||
|
|
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| IT / Business Alignment | 27% | ||
| Cost-saving | 13% | ||
| Managing change | 8% | ||
| Status of the IT Director | 8% | ||
| Legacy Systems | 5% | ||
| Customer focus | 5% | ||
| Enterprise Architecture | 5% | ||
| Business Intelligence | 5% | ||
| Avoiding the latest and greatest | 3% | ||
| Cloud Computing | 3% | ||
| Only one response | 17% | ||
|
|
|||
| Total | 100% | ||
I would like to thank all of the IT professionals who contributed to this survey.
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17 March 2009 at 2:12 pm |
[...] A summary of the research that led to developing these topics may be viewed here. [...]
19 March 2009 at 4:43 pm |
[...] issues. UPDATE: The results of this survey are now available and may be viewed here. [...]
19 March 2009 at 5:53 pm |
Peter,
This really aligns with what my clients have said to me in the past, especially with regard to IT/Business Alignment. I have been told how they are drowning in data but, since their top level key performance indicators are not aligned with operations, they don’t have enough information.
19 March 2009 at 6:11 pm |
Thanks for your comment Kevin.
19 March 2009 at 8:53 pm |
Peter..
Your results are spot on! We have seen so many organizations not understand the importance of proper alignment of not only their IT but the business itself. A friend of mine, Stan Kirkwood (who, by the way, is the former CIO for La-Z-Boy), put together a presentation out on Slideshare called, “Trying to Align IT to the Business Is Futile” (http://www.slideshare.net/stankirkwood/dont-try-to-align-it-and-the-business-presentation). The title itself gets the attention of many, but the lesson is It can’t be looked at as a separate part of the enterprise, it has to be viewed as integrated into the “whole”. That’s the only way the CIO/IT Department will ever get the respect they so crave!
Thanks for the very interesting survey results!
Take care..
Derril
19 March 2009 at 9:09 pm |
Derril,
Thanks for the comments and the link – I’ll take a look at the presentation tomorrow. On the topic of alignment, you might want to check out my collection of articles on the subject here.
Peter
20 March 2009 at 5:31 pm |
Hey Peter,
Do you know if these results vary for the SMB segment? Thanks
20 March 2009 at 5:34 pm |
Hi Carla,
No I didn’t try to capture that information.
Peter
25 March 2009 at 3:35 am |
I think part of the problem has to do with how people think and the words we use. For instance we talk about the Government as if it was a single entity. The same is true for Wall Street and Main Street.
But those are not single entities. Wall Street is made up of many good people – people who worked hard and played the game the way it was explained to them. The same can be said about Main Street (where I live), the Government and the business.
Aligning IT with the business makes a false assumption – that there is one thing to align to. “The Business” does not exist as an entity. It is comprised of many parts and most of those parts are going in different directions.
I have learned through the years that ‘the business’ is not aligned with ‘the business’ – that should be the number one issue for CEOs.
Alignment is not an IT issue, it is a business issue, and can only be achieved by designing all of the parts of a business to work together.
27 March 2009 at 12:38 am |
Stan,
Thanks for your thoughts on this. I’m just back from helping to run a seminar at which this was a major talking point and I will try to write a piece about it soon.
Peter
27 March 2009 at 12:32 pm |
[...] PragmatismKeynote ArticlesWhy IT is not like Civil EngineeringAwardsTrends in Business IntelligenceThe Top Business Issues facing CIOs / IT Directors – ResultsShort-term “Trouble for Big Business Intelligence Vendors” may lead to longer-term [...]
15 April 2009 at 5:27 pm |
[...] is clear water between the top five and the chasing pack. The next most popular article, The Top Business Issues facing CIOs / IT Directors – Results, is 176 hits back on 694. Of course one might assume that an “all-time” list would [...]
16 April 2009 at 4:36 pm |
Please be aware: “The business” does not exist. Take a look at:
http://www.via-nova-architectura.org/files/magazine/Baarda3.pdf
16 April 2009 at 4:43 pm |
PJ,
I took a brief look at your paper, but if you want to start a discussion about it, maybe posting something more substantial that “Please be aware [...]” would be a good start.
Peter
22 April 2009 at 9:31 pm |
[...] realizes that the highest preoccupation by an CIO today is the issue of Business-IT Alignment. A survey run by Peter Thomas back in January provided some good indication: 27% of the senior IT managers said that Alignment [...]
1 July 2009 at 2:24 pm |
[...] The Top Business Issues facing CIOs / IT Directors – Results [...]