Tomorrow's CIO Looking Very Much Like Today's CEO, InformationWeek Research Finds

Tomorrow's CIO Looking Very Much Like Today's CEO, InformationWeek Research
Finds
New research finds emerging challenges abound for Tomorrow's CIO: Mastering
Business Processes, Creating Customer Value and Experience Outside of IT

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- InformationWeek, the
leading multimedia business technology brand, released the results of an
in-depth study that delves into the role of the CIO and their evolving
influence within their organizations. The study, "Tomorrow's CIO", reveals
that companies continue to demand business innovation and technology vision
from CIOs while looking to CIOs for leadership across a broad range of issues.
In addition, there are signs that the perception of the CIO role has slipped
among other corporate officers, according to the latest report by
InformationWeek's Analytics (http://www.informationweekanalytics.com), an
exclusive IT research and analysis service from TechWeb's InformationWeek
(http://www.informationweek.com). The InformationWeek Analytics Report on
Tomorrow's CIO, written by John Soat, is now available at
http://www.informationweekanalytics.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=4
4 (Due to length of URL, please copy and paste into browser and remove the
space if one exists)
InformationWeek found that companies will continue to expect more than
infrastructure management from CIOs and their IT organizations. The
attributes considered extremely important by at least eight of 10 people
surveyed are leadership, effective execution, collaboration, vision,
innovation, and team building. In the survey of 720 business technology
executives, 78% believe that the need to optimize business processes will
drive the CIO's influence as a leader.
Still, the study offers warning signs for CIOs. Only 39% of corporate
managers outside IT say the influence of the CIO is increasing, down from 43%
in InformationWeek's research a year ago. CIOs are slightly more bullish on
themselves: 55% say the CIO's stature has increased in their organization,
down from 66% a year ago. One third of the corporate managers surveyed
describe the CIO as "actively involved" in the big corporate decisions, the
same as last year. But only 30% of CIOs describe themselves as "actively
involved," down from 38% last year.
The research points to even greater changes for the CIOs waiting in the
wings. New and future generations of CIOs will need a different skill set to
master the CIO role of tomorrow. Experience other than IT is increasingly
more critical to the CIO of tomorrow. Expectations are high for tomorrow's
CIO -- a tech-savvy business leader and innovator, aggressive and effective,
visionary and practical, innovative and process orientated.
The survey indicates how important diverse experience is to the CIO role
of the future. Effective future CIOs will likely need experience running a
business unit outside IT. (see chart below)

Very important 36%
Valuable, but not critical 58%
Not important 6%

Although there are signs pointing towards less CIO influence, leadership
continues to top the list of attributes critical for tomorrow's CIO; this was
cited by more than nine of 10 respondents.
The survey shows the following ranking of for CIO attributes:

Leadership 94%
Ability to execute and meet deadlines 89%
Collaboration and communication 88%
Vision 85%
Innovation 81%
Team building 80%
Consensus building 68%
Technical breadth and depth 55%
Raw intellect 53%
Sales orientation 35%

The report also cited the major obstacles confronting CIOs and topping the
list is the view of IT as a cost center rather than business enabler. The
survey shows the following list of obstacles facing CIOs:

CIOs/VPs Corporate
of IT Managers
The fact that IT is still viewed as
a cost center 70% 66%
The burden of ongoing IT maintenance 57% 50%
The fact that top management lacks
technology vision 41% 30%
Inability to attract and retain top
business technology talent 31% 29%
A risk-adverse corporate culture 29% 25%
The fact that more business executives are
involved in technology strategy 22% 24%
Diminished influence of the CIO in the
senior management ranks 20% 13%

"There's a dichotomy developing around the perception of the CIO. Where
some organizations see a competitive advantage in their IT organizations,
others suffer from the legacy perception that IT is a cost to be minimized,"
said Art Wittmann, Managing Director of InformationWeek Analytics.
"Increasingly it's up to the CIO to prove the worth of IT investments."
In conjunction with this research, InformationWeek also offers The CIO
Assessment Tool, which evaluates the preparedness of CIOs for tomorrow's
challenges. CIOs can assess their readiness by visiting:
www.informationweek.com/news/management/interviews/showArticle.jhtml?articleID
=208403497 (Due to length of URL, please copy and paste into browser and
remove the space if one exists)
These survey results punctuate the theme of the 2008 InformationWeek 500
Conference, "Tomorrow's CIO." The annual event will be held September 14-16,
2008 at the St. Regis Resort in Monarch Beach, CA. The prestigious event will
not only celebrate naming the top 500 IT organizations, it will also focus on
preparing technology executives to meet the needs of tomorrow's dynamic
business environment.
The 2008 InformationWeek 500 Conference provides insights to the skills,
experience and expertise that will ensure success for the CIO of the future.
The Conference will feature in-depth, expert-led discussions on what it takes
for current and next-generation CIOs to prosper, peer group dialogue including
innovative sessions with leading CIOs designed to spark ideas and interaction,
a keen focus on the technologies that will drive tomorrow's businesses and
proven, unconventional strategies and processes to make it happen.
To learn more about the Tomorrow's CIO research study, please visit:
http://informationweekanalytics.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=44 .
To learn more about the 2008 InformationWeek 500 Conference, please visit
http://www.informationweek.com/conference/08fall/ or contact Scott Vaughan,
Vice President, Marketing, TechWeb at svaughan@techweb.com or 949.223.3662.
About InformationWeek Business Technology Network
(http://www.informationweek.com/)
The InformationWeek Business Technology Network provides business
technology executives with unique perspective, market leading research and
innovative tools that work in lock step with their work flow -- from defining
and framing business technology objectives through to the evaluation and
recommendation of specific solutions. The InformationWeek Business Technology
Network delivers the entire market, from SMBs with bMighty.com to large-scale
global companies with InformationWeek. We scale across the most critical
technology categories in the market -- security with DarkReading.com, storage
with ByteandSwitch.com, application architecture with
IntelligentEnterprise.com, network architecture with NetworkComputing.com and
communications with NoJitter.com. Through its multi-media platform and unique
content-in-context information distribution system, the InformationWeek
Business Technology Network provides trusted information developed both by
editors and real world CIO/IT professionals delivered how and when business
technology executives want it, 24/7.
About TechWeb (http://www.techweb.com/aboutus)
TechWeb, the global leader in business technology media, is an innovative
business focused on serving the needs of technology decision-makers and
marketers worldwide. TechWeb produces the most respected and consumed media
brands in the business technology market. Today, more than 13.3 million*
business technology professionals actively engage in our communities created
around our global face-to-face events Interop, Web 2.0, Black Hat and
VoiceCon; online resources such as the TechWeb Network, Light Reading,
Intelligent Enterprise, InformationWeek.com, bMighty.com, and The Financial
Technology Network; and the market leading, award-winning InformationWeek,
TechNet Magazine, MSDN Magazine, Wall Street & Technology magazines. TechWeb
also provides end-to-end services ranging from next-generation performance
marketing, integrated media, research, and analyst services.
TechWeb is a division of United Business Media, a global provider of news
distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization
of more than $2.5 billion.
*13.3 million business decision-makers: based on # of monthly connections
across TechWeb brands.

Contact: Ellen Asuncion
Marketing Manager
949-223-3622
easuncion@techweb.com

SOURCE InformationWeek; TechWeb

Ellen Asuncion, Marketing Manager, +1-949-223-3622, easuncion@techweb.com, for
InformationWeek and TechWeb