Uncouple from past beliefs: Gartner to CIOs

MUMBAI, INDIA: As organizations grapple with continued global economic turbulence, CIOs need to uncouple from past processes and beliefs and embrace a new manifesto, according to Gartner, Inc.

At Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, taking place here through November 23, Gartner analysts have identified four key principles for a new CIO Manifesto that they said will not just change CIOs and their departments for the better, but benefit entire enterprises as well.

“Executives in India and around the world, even in the face of global economic uncertainty, have identified increasing economic and business growth as their highest priority,” said Partha Iyengar, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

“Since this will demand more from IT organizations than just cutting costs, it is clearly time for CIOs to embrace a new CIO manifesto that will declare how generating revenue must become a new and central component of their IT organization’s mission for the rest of this decade and beyond,” he added.

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The four key principles of the CIO manifesto include

1) Information is just as important, if not more important than Information Technology

2) By 2016 more than 50 per cent of annual CIO project spending will be directed toward measurably improving the financial conditions of an enterprise.

3) By 2020, more than 50 per cent of all enterprise information and IT spending will directly support revenue-generating rather than expense-related business processes.

4) The incentive portion of CIO compensation will be derived from the amount of money created by the efforts of CIOs and their staff.

“The time really has come to challenge some of the most commonly held IT organization, operations and leadership beliefs,” Iyengar said. “Becoming a ‘money-making CIO’ requires challenging the efficacy of all current IT business practices, and CIOs really need to take control of the purse strings. For the next two years, business-initiated requests for new IT projects should only be undertaken if they yield measurable and auditable financial benefits for the enterprise,” he concluded.