Industry report reveals IT priorities in a post-XP world

LONDON, UK: A new report from rationalisation experts Camwood reveals that, in the wake of recent XP migrations, and with the accelerating pace of change in the IT department, IT Directors and Managers now see near constant change and migration projects as the new norm in the near future: Coping with this change has now become a primary concern for IT departments.

Camwood's report, ‘After the big XP migration: What now?', the successor to 2013's ‘The end of XP - one year to go', polled 250 IT Decision Markers (ITDMs) from UK enterprises with over 2,000 employees.

According to this report, 90 percent of IT Decision Makers believe that the pace of change in IT is accelerating, and that this presents a significant challenge. 72 percent find the pace of change in IT ‘unsettling'. 93 percent also agree that, in the new IT environment, a flexible IT infrastructure is key to their organisation's success, with 79 percent believing that IT departments that don't adapt risk demise.

When asked what types of projects were driving this need for business agility, 65 percent cite big data projects, 50 percent mention cloud services, 44 percent compliance-related projects and 41 percent BYOD. In terms of how ITDMs perceived that users would drive change, 51 percent cited the desire for remote working as a major driver, 43 percent a desire for productivity gains, and 24 percent the desire amongst users for consumer-like environments.

Over half of UK ITDMs perceive that the IT department will follow a centralised shared services approach within the next three years, with 17 percent envisioning a decentralised function with each business unit supporting its own IT function. Perhaps most interestingly, 69 percent of IT decision makers believe that the role of the CIO may fundamentally change or be eradicated in favour of a different kind of role in the next five years.