McKinsey
has recently published their fourth annual survey on information technology
strategy and spending. No big surprise that the economic downturn has adversely
affected IT spending.
The
survey, IT in the new normal, affirms “the continuing importance of IT to
strategic success, despite the recession. CIOs have felt strong pressure to
deliver ever greater levels of efficiency in the downturn, but overall
satisfaction with IT organizations remains high. In addition, most respondents
foresee an increase in IT investment, perhaps because companies are applying IT
to solve problems across the business. Meanwhile, as technology-related
disruptions continue to affect businesses, executives persist in pushing for
closer integration between business units and IT.”
As I
reviewed the survey, it was pleasing to note the trend toward increasing focus
on the importance of improving business efficiency through IT instead of simply
reducing IT costs. While it is critical to keep IT costs in line, the most
significant gains to most enterprises is in the effective use of IT to solve
business problems by enabling better processes and increasing visibility. The
following exhibit from the survey “suggests that executives are realizing
better results from applying IT to solving problems across the business.”
“Non-IT executives
continue to say they want to forge a closer partnership with IT in order to
improve performance and better manage the risks and disruptions that lie ahead.
While only 16 percent of respondents say they have put into place tightly
coupled business and IT strategies (see Exhibit below), two-thirds of
respondents indicate that this configuration would be their ideal.
Significantly, the level of strategy integration is strongly correlated to the
perceived effectiveness of IT: for both business and IT executives,
effectiveness materially increases as the strategies become more tightly
linked.”
Below are links to the
various sections of the survey report. The complete article can be read here.
·
Page 2: IT’s response to the
recession
o
Exhibit 2: Responding to the crisis
·
Page 3: Spending in the right place
o
Exhibit 3: Spending more on new
investments
o
Exhibit 4: Lower satisfaction
·
Page 5: Shared vision for IT
strategy
o
Exhibit 6: More effective, with
tighter integration
Contributors
to the development and analysis of the McKinsey survey include Roger Roberts, a
principal in McKinsey’s Silicon Valley office; and Johnson Sikes, a
consultant in the New York office.