Economist Intelligence Unit: A New Mandate for IT.

A new mandate for IT
A report from the Economist Intelligence Unit sponsored by Capgemini, Cisco Systems and SAPA new mandate for IT
Preface
A new mandate for IT is an edited compendium of two reports published in 2006 and 2007 by the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Global Technology Forum, a research programme targetted at senior executives responsible for managing and deploying information technology in the pursuit of business objectives. The Global Technology Forum is sponsored by Capgemini, Cisco Systems and SAP.The two reports combined in this publication are Great expectations: The changing role of IT in the business (published in September 2006) and Mission accepted: IT as revenue generator (published in February 2007). The research for each was based on global surveys of, respectively, 288 and 293 senior executives, as well as interviews with CIOs and other senior technology managers. In combining the reports, we have edited each to eliminate redundancy and ensure a logical flow.The Economist Intelligence Unit's editorial team executed the surveys, conducted the interviews and wrote the reports. The findings and views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors. The Economist Intelligence Unit bears sole responsibility for the reports' content.Our sincere thanks go to the survey participants and interviewees for sharing their insights with us.
April 2007
1 © The Economist Intelligence Unit 2007A new mandate for IT
technology and business functions from across the Executive summary globe. The principal findings of the research are Innovation is no stranger to the information highlighted below.technology function. Armed with increasingly sophisticated applications, IT-led teams have l An "expectations gap" exists between IT and the consistently found new ways to streamline enterprise executive suite. Most technology managers (62%) business processes, vastly improving operating also believe that enabling revenue generation will efficiency and reducing costs. Corporate leaders, come to be IT's primary mission within the next three however, are raising the bar: they expect IT's core years, but CEOs and board members (83%) are almost mission to expand from cost-cutting to enabling wholly convinced of it. The gap yawns particularly revenue generation within a short period of time. wide in Asia-Pacific and Europe, where many IT Most IT leaders are ready to accept the challenge, managers retain a strong belief in the primacy of IT's but what does revenue generation mean for the IT cost-reduction role-partly due to continued C-level function? And how can organisations encourage insistence on hitting cost-efficiency targets. This gap truly innovative behaviour from IT that contributes will need to close-and C-level priorities to become to revenue growth? To find out, the Economist more consistent- for better IT-business alignment to Intelligence Unit surveyed senior executives in both be achieved.
l Customer relationships and product About the surveys development are the key areas where IT will enable top-line growth. When it comes to revenue The analysis presented in this report is based on two Global Technology Forum surveys conducted by the generation, surveyed executives expect IT to be at Economist Intelligence Unit. The first, completed in its most innovative in using technology to enhance May 2006, attracted 288 executives, and the second, the customer experience, and thus boost customer completed in December 2006, drew 293 executives. spend. No less important will be the ability to improve In both surveys, about 40% of the respondents were product development through the origination of new based in Europe, 30% in the Americas and 26% in Asia- product or services ideas, or new channels for existing Pacific. (Full survey details can be found in the appen-dix to this report.) products. Both survey samples were also very senior. In the first survey 43%, and in the second survey 48%, of l Revenue generation and cost-cutting are not respondents were C-level executives such as CEOs, CIOs mutually exclusive missions. An overwhelming and CFOs, with the balance being senior managers 91% of surveyed executives believe their firm's such as heads of business units and departments. IT capabilities can be structured to support both In order to compare views of IT from different functional perspectives, we achieved a rough ba... [download for more]