IBM’s “The New Voice of the CIO” Survey Reveals Innovative CIOs

CIOs are spending about 55 percent of their time driving innovative activities such as rolling out new technologies and business initiatives or managing nontechnology business issues, says a study by IBM called “The New Voice of the CIO.”

Data for the Global CIO Study 2009 was collected during face-to-face interviews conducted by IBM execs with 2,598 CIOs, working in organizations across 78 countries.

Click here to see the full survey results.

When choosing from a list of 20 ways to increase competitive advantage within their industry, 83 percent of respondents identified business intelligence and data analytics as the most important factors in optimizing their businesses. Security and data reliability also ranked high as a common concern, with 71 percent of the CIOs planning more spending for compliance and risk management reasons.

Companies surveyed were grouped into high, medium and low growth levels by using profit data from 2004 to 2007. The top three themes common among successful CIOs at high-growth companies were a sharper focus on innovation, business impact and strategies to raise the ROI of IT.

The findings also showed a significantly different focus for CIOs in each group. High-growth CIOs, for example, emphasize innovative change to the business while CIOs at low-growth firms focus more heavily on tactical IT management. “As the business changes, IT can either respond as usual or challenge the traditional IT operating model at the core” says Dave Patzwald, VP of IT at Schneider Electric. “This is a transformational shift, not just a short-term challenge.”

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