If you ask a dozen CIOs what their top 10 headaches were in the past 12 months, they’d probably offer up a few dozen different answers. But there are a few headaches that seem common to CIOs no matter what industry or what part of the world they work in.
Beyond the ongoing Microsoft Patch Tuesdays, keeping up with the latest technology standards, and the proliferation of diverse mobile gadgets, CIOs report headaches around the unexpected and newly encountered tasks that fell in their laps in 2009. The most common answer: Accomplishing more with a smaller budget.
“In a stagnant or shrinking economy — which is what we were facing going into 2009 — CIOs are frequently asked to accomplish technology delivery in the context of efficiency but also budgetary limits or even shrinkage,” said Laef Olson, CIO for RightNow Technologies, an on-demand customer experience software developer in Bozeman, Mont., with customers like Electronic Arts, eBay and Virgin. “The headache comes when the business needs are pressing — say executing on improving customer experience to retain existing customers — but the budget is fixed.”
The Chief Concern
Indeed, business productivity and cost reduction was the number one concern among CIOs and IT executives, according to the Society for Information Management’s (SIM) 2009 IT Industry Trend Survey. That’s a change from years past, when IT and business alignment were considered the biggest headaches.
In 2009, 52 percent of respondents said their IT budgets decreased compared to 2008. The good news is the pain may subside, at least a little, in the coming months. Looking ahead to 2010, 27 percent expect budgets to increase and another 45 percent expect them to remain the same — practically mirroring pre-recession levels.
“The results of the study confirm that the economic downturn has caused a significant shift in priorities,” said Jerry…