IBM recently unveiled the findings of its global study of more
than 2,500 Chief Information Officers (CIOs), including those from
India. According to the India Point of View (PoV) of this study,
Indian CIOs appear to be more progressive as compared to their
global counterparts. The India PoV reveals that Indian CIOs are
looking to ‘make innovation real’ and ‘expand
business impact’ for their respective organizations.
In the study done with CIOs across 78 countries and 19 industries,
100 Indian CIOs from organizations of all size were interviewed.
The PoV finds that across majority of survey questions, responses
of Indian CIOs appeared to indicate that they are more progressive
and visionary as compared to their global counterparts.
Some of the key findings of the India PoV of the CIO Study 2009 are
as below:
· 64% Indian CIOs proactively push IT as an
innovation element compared to 55% of global CIOs.
· 64% of Indian CIOs anticipate standardized and
low-cost business processes to be a reality within their
organization. Repeatability and simplicity seem to be more
important than the unique character of the process itself. Only 53%
global CIOs share this view.
· Over 70% Indian CIOs expect to explore newer channels
for end-customer interactions and anticipate greater levels of
integration and transparency with customers in the next five years.
Global responses rank between 56-64%.
· One key area where Global CIOs rank ahead of Indian
CIOs is around proactively crafting data into actionable
information. However, this is also an area which both global and
Indian CIOs have ranked as #1 for their visionary plans for
future.
· 56% of Indian CIOs decide on business strategy as a
member of the senior management team. Globally, this number is only
33%.
The starkest contrast between what Global CIOs and Indian CIOs
pointed out among their top most challenges for future was related
to budgets. 45% of Global CIOs saw this as a challenge versus
only 28% of Indian CIOs. Clearly, IT budgets aren’t something
that is bothering Indian CIOs as much as their global peers.
Indian CIOs also gave significantly higher ranking to areas like
Green IT as compared to global peers. Concepts such as SOA, Web
services and Business Process Management which are fairly new
concepts within the last five years for most CIOs, have obtained a
firm position in the top innovation list in this study.
Due to increasing adoption of online business, the traditional way
of doing business is undergoing sea change in India. Online
business brings with it risk related to data security and keeping
pace with tech advancements. And this gets represented in the
survey, where security factors rank high as the challenge.