More than one in five CIOs believe that their direct control over technology has diminished since the start of the recession, whilst the proportion of companies where more than ten per cent of technology spend lies outside the control of the IT department has almost doubled to 40 per cent in the last three years.
Despite this, CIOs see their roles as growing in importance, but recognise that their value is increasingly driven through collaboration and influence, rather than direct control.
This is according to the 15th Annual CIO Technology Survey 2013, conducted by Harvey Nash in association with TelecityGroup, presenting the views of more than 2,000 CIOs and technology leaders across twenty countries.
5. Which of the top three ‘new’
skills are most in demand in your
organization?
a) Big data
b) Mobile
c) Social media
6. Percentage of U.S. CIOs actively seeking and applying for jobs
Source: Harvey Nash CIO Survey 2013
CIO career
Notas del editor
Almost three-quarters of U.S. respondents, 71 percent, see the role of the CIO becoming more strategic. Additionally, 58 percent of U.S. CIOs now sit on the operational board oftheir organization.As the role of the CIO becomes more strategic, the percentage of CIOs who report directly to the CEO also continues to increase. In 2013 more than one-third of U.S. CIOs report to the chief executive, compared to 31 percent last year, representing an ongoing upward trend since 2010.
However, despite their growing strategic relevance many CIOs are seeing the level of direct control over IT declining. In what is becoming an increasingly collaborative environment it is not new for CIOs to have others get involved in technology budget decisions.In recent years with the growth of digital, mobile and social marketing, collaboration between the marketing department and the technology function is having a greater role in shaping technology budgets.As such, for CIOs to continue to exert their strategic influence it appears likely they will have to do so through the prism of great technology budget collaboration. And when looking at the data regionally, the midwest appears to be leading the charge relative to their east coast counter parts as 44% of midwest respondents indicated 10% or more of their budget is being managed outside IT compared to 37% of east coast respondents.
More than one-half of U.S. CIOs have indicated a technology skills shortage would prevent their organization from keeping up with the pace of change, however, this is down slightly from 56 percent in 2012. In looking at this regionally, the east coast and west coast are nearly on par with the US at 49% and 53%, respectively. Where it seems the skills shortage is having the greatest impact is the midwest at 67%.A range of technology skills are sought by U.S. CIOs today, from the traditional to the emerging. The demand for mobile skills has grown 14 percent since 2011 – as you can see in the table – and almost one-third of U.S. CIOs are looking to secure talent with mobile solutions this year. In addition, 34 percent of U.S. CIOs cite skills shortages in big data, a skills category that wasn’t even on the radar in 2011, and only emergent in 2012. However, despite the shift towards 21st century talent, it is the “classic” technology skills like enterprise architecture - sought by 42 percent of CIOs that remains the most in-demand skill overall, closely followed by business analysis (38 percent), technical architecture (36 percent) and project management (34 percent)Perhaps reflecting the growing concern of many CIOs about the risk to technology operations posed by IT threats there has been a spike in the demand for candidates with Security and Resilience skills – in 2011 only 13 percent of CIOs were seeking these skills, today that figure has doubled to 25 percent.
Placeholder for poll question
Since 2011 there has been a steady turnover in the U.S. senior technology leadership job market, one in five U.S. CIOs - 19 percent - plan to move jobs in the next 12 months. U.S. CIOs are more proactive than at any time in the previous four years when it comes to identifying and pursing new technologyleadership opportunities.This churn exists despite 70 percent of CIOs feeling fulfilled in their current role.