• understanding of IT by business leadership (77 percent vs. 38 percent average)
• effective relationships between IT and the business (94 percent against an average of 67 percent)
• very strong delivery of fundamental IT services (83 percent against an average of 56 percent)
• the CIO reports to the CEO/COO (rather than the CFO) (75 percent against 53 percent)
• 88 percent (against 40 percent) stating that they were a partner of the business not a supplier or utility provider

When comparing different industry sectors, the survey reveals that IT is now playing a key role in business innovation in the Public Sector: it comes first as the sector that considers IT as a source of innovation and second, just after Financial Services, as the sector in which companies have KPIs for the IT function for innovation.

What are the challenges?
CIOs cite their most important challenges to innovation as:

• short term operational matters (52 percent),
• insufficient capabilities (37 percent),
• difficulties in recruiting skilled staff (35 percent),
• a lack of business sponsorship (25 percent),
• and poor business and IT collaboration (24 percent)

Meanwhile, a new generation of IT literate users is now able to innovate using IT without the help of the IT department. User driven technology demands have made IT more critical to the business but the IT function less so. This comes at a time when much of the IT value chain has been outsourced and replaced by package implementation, leaving IT with a process-oriented, cost and risk containment role. Interestingly, the level of outsourcing is not seen as a barrier for IT to play a key role in business innovation: 72 percent of the respondents believe it has a positive impact, providing the capacity to focus on innovation. According to the report, effective CIO leadership, an open and informal organisational culture and IT performance measures that focus on value are likely to drive innovation in the current business climate.

What are the recommendations for building a key role for the IT function in business innovation?
In order to achieve this, CIOs must reconfigure the IT organisation and its governance by doing the following:

• separating IT fundamentals from business innovation and identifying the correct balance between the
  two;
• maximising available resources and skills by effectively using technology partners and outsourcing;
• linking technology to innovation instead of cost to show that IT can change the business for the better;
• partnering with businesses in key innovation areas to improve business processes and identify
  innovative technology that brings value to the business.

"The successful IT function will transform itself into an effective conduit for accessing services in the marketplace and delivering these services to users, empowering them in their roles to achieve business goals. This will drive an increased business worth around the IT function as an enabler of innovation for business benefit." summarizes Eric Monnoyer, BIS Global leader, Capgemini Consulting.

The Global CIO Survey
The CIO survey is a result of 395 face to face interviews with global CIOs representing all industries. The interviews were conducted between August and November 2007. This research is the latest iteration of a series of international CIO surveys produced by Capgemini Consulting:
- European CIO Survey – views on future IT delivery 2006
- Global CIO Survey 2007: IT agility – enabling business freedom.
For the purposes of this survey Capgemini Consulting used the following definition of innovation: 'Change that
creates a new dimension of performance' Peter F Drucker.