CIOs seek to maintain relevance through service-led transformations

SLOUGH, ENGLAND: As IT spend moves to line of business managers, and with more than half spending at least 70 percent of their time on day-to-day tasks, CIOs are creating a new mission for IT

CIOs must act now to take on a more strategic role or risk being pushed aside by line of business managers, an international survey carried out by Logicalis has found.

Of the almost three quarters (72 percent) of CIOs who expressed a view, 60 percent agreed that line of business managers will gain more power over IT decision making over the next three to five years - a trend driven by the growing availability of externally available cloud services and expectations of technology and application consumerisation.

In response, CIOs are more acutely aware than ever of the need to take on a key strategic role, the Logicalis survey found. They are actively seeking to confront the challenge of legacy operational costs and drive services-led technology and operational transformation, to reshape the IT function as a pseudo service provider. But most are still struggling to resource day to day management tasks:

* Three quarters (73 percent) of CIOs and IT Directors want to spend at least half of their time on strategic activities.

* In reality, 53 percent of CIOs and IT Directors currently spend 70 percent or more of their time on day-to-day management of technology, while 80 percent spend at least half of their time on low value, non-strategic activity.

The international survey found that a consensus appears to be emerging as CIOs seek to effect the dramatic shift in focus on which their long-term relevance may depend. Internal technology and operational optimisation, aligned to more extensive and efficient use of managed services partners and cloud services are emerging as key priorities for the CIO and their organisation:

* 63 percent see streamlining and optimising their technology infrastructure as vital to freeing up time to focus on strategic goals.

* 31 percent would consolidate the use of managed services, selecting single vendors to manage specific technologies and/or services across multiple territories.

* 30 percent want to hand more day-to-day management activities over to specialist managed services vendors.

* 19 percent point to an increased adoption of the cloud consumption model.