Inbox: CEOs and CIOs on same page

Results from global study of more than 3000 chief information officers (CIOs) released by IBM last month reveal that CEOs and CIOs are aligned in their thinking around future challenges and complexity.
“As the world becomes more instrumented, intelligent and interconnected, the CIO role holds even more importance. CEOs and CIOs are almost identically aligned in their perception of challenges ahead, trend reflected in New Zealand,” says Ross Pearce, senior managing consultant, IBM Global Business Services. “Our study shows that local CIOs believe they have clear mandate to take lead role on driving operational improvements for their organisation. CIOs will also facilitate the increasing use of business analytics tools that will enable organisations to achieve their business strategies.”
For CIOs from New Zealand, investing in IT is the number one priority to help drive organisational strategy by 2015, with 83 percent of respondents agreeing, out of the local sample of 54 respondents.
The study also suggested that using business intelligence (BI) and analytics to gain competitive advantage and improve efficiency is the top priority for New Zealand CIOs. Of the study’s New Zealand respondents, 98 percent cited BI and analytics as the key tool to enhance their organisations’ competitiveness, compared with 92 percent of CIOs across Australia and New Zealand and 83 percent globally.
The findings also show 60 percent of Australian and New Zealand CIOs see cloud computing as strategic and plan to implement it in the next five years, significant rise from the 2009 study which indicated only 39 percent of Australian and New Zealand CIOs were considering the technology.