Agents of
Innovation
Significant - and long overdue - change in the role of the CIO has put them at the heart of the action.
They are balancing operational and strategic priorities, and taking a leading role in driving new approaches to innovation.
The big picture has changed dramatically
The demands of day-to-day have significantly reduced, freeing up the CIO to focus on strategic innovation.
of CIOs spend at least 50% of their time on day to day IT management
devote between 10% and 50% of their time to information security
spend between 10% and 50% of ther time on innovation
CIOs must still balance innovation with more pressing strategic priorities like information security. And their performance measures confirm this.
Less than two thirds are measured by their success in reducing the cost of IT. 50% are measured on ability to deliver service innovation.
Are days of belt tightening coming to an end?
The suggestion that CIOs are now striking a balance between innovation and operations is confirmed by the range of activities on which their performance is measured.
How CIOs are Measured
An increased willingness to 'export' IT is proving a double-edged sword for CIOs.
The anatomy of the IT estate.
Working with trusted third parties to deliver and manage IT outside of the core is about making day to day management more efficient while maintaining service agility.
of IT is now managed by the external suppliers.
CIOs report some success in deriving business benefit from business intelligence (BI) and analytics, but much more can be done.
BI and analytics league tables, within organisations
Analytics is key to effective information security, and security strategies are evolving...
CIOs were asked of the main security threats facing their business
Malware & Ransomware (including crypto-jacking)
Lack of staff awareness and resulting mistakes
Data breaches
Phishing
Malicious insiders
Social engineering
Changing regulatory environment
Industrial Espionage
State sponsored attacks
I’d like to start by offering my sincere thanks to each of the 841 CIOs and IT leaders who took the time to contribute to this report. Their willingness to share their thoughts and experiences with us is vital to gathering the insight that gives the Logicalis Global CIO Survey its solid grounding in the real world.
After six years of surveys, with input from thousands of CIOs, we know very well how precious their time is, especially during a period of profound change – for the relationship between business and IT and, consequently, for the role of the CIO.
The pressure on CIOs has been unrelenting, with the ever present need to balance vital day to day IT management with strategic priorities and innovation, made all the more complex by the need to cut costs.
With that in mind, I am delighted to see CIOs this year finally enjoying success in taking on a long-desired more strategic role – no doubt helped by their increasing reliance on trusted third parties to take on more of the heavy lifting associated with day to day activities.
Most importantly, this shift seems to have enabled CIOs to take central roles in innovation. To my mind, this is essential given that digital technology now sits at the heart of innovation, not just enabling better service delivery, communication or collaboration, but defining entirely new business propositions.
There is still a long way to go if organisations are to realise the full benefits of digital transformation. But the fact that CIOs and technology leaders are central to this innovation – rather than struggling to keep up – can only give us real optimism for the future.
Naturally, at Logicalis we are committed to helping CIOs effect these changes and to innovate in forging a new, closer relationship between business and technology. Over the last five years we have invested heavily in acquiring the capabilities, services and expertise we believe can be pivotal in enabling CIOs to both adopt a new, more strategic role and thrive in it.
For instance, we have grown our capabilities in the IoT technology market. We have delivered projects across the Americas, Europe and Asia in a wide range of industry sectors. But in particular, the manufacturing, retail and public sectors, delivering, for example, pilot projects for fleet management and smart cities.
On the security front we have invested in regional security advisors. They are working with our clients to develop their security strategies, compliance status and technology configuration. Equally, security analysts in our state-of-the-art security operations centres in Europe, Latin America and Asia deliver cloud-based managed security services to our clients around the globe.
We have leveraged our big data skills in the Latin American operation to extend to Spain and the UK to deploy and manage big data platforms for our customers. Spain and the UK have also developed AI capability and some new specialist partnerships.
Mark Rogers, Chief Executive Officer, Logicalis Group