Global survey results of IT

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.”

 

The other significant trend is towards closer collaboration between non-IT executives and those in IT, and a clearer understanding that a tight coupling between the two directly correlates to the effectiveness of IT.

“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 1: Introduction

·       Page 2: IT’s response to the recession

o   Exhibit 1: The role of IT

o   Exhibit 2: Responding to the crisis

·       Page 3: Spending in the right place

o   Exhibit 3: Spending more on new investments

·       Page 4: IT’s effectiveness

o   Exhibit 4: Lower satisfaction

·       Page 5: Shared vision for IT strategy

o   Exhibit 5: Top disruptions

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.