State of the CIO Survey Results

CIOs expect to continue to control the majority of the IT budget, see shadow IT as a looming concern, are more closely aligned with other business executives, consider revenue growth and customer acquisition as critical priorities, and are focused on aligning IT initiatives with business goals.

Those are the findings of CIO Research’s 2014 State of the CIO Survey. The objective of 13th annual survey of CIOs was to gain an understanding how the role of the CIO continues to evolve in today’s business environment. Results are based on 722 respondents who indicated they are the head of IT at their company or business unit.

While a sentiment prevails in the tech industry that CIOs may be losing control of IT spending, that isn’t the case, according to CIOs responding to our survey. IT currently directly controls an average of 65 percent of the total dollars currently invested in technology products and services at their organizations.

While CIOs may not wrestle control of more budget, they don’t expect to lose any control either. CIOs predict that the 65 percent figure will remain flat in the next three years.

Leveraging data and analytics ranks among the most important technology initiative in the coming year (see table below). While innovation ranks within the top 5 most frequently cited priorities, survey results suggest this area may prove challenging for some as less than half have a well-defined process for innovation and 37 percent say they are asked to be innovative but are not clear how to accomplish that. More than two-thirds find it challenging to find the right balance between business innovation and operational excellence.

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Dan Muse is executive editor of CIO.com. Follow him on Twitter @dmuse. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter @CIOonline, on Facebook, and on Google +.