Computerworld

Is pressure increasing on IT organisations to innovate?

Business leaders across New Zealand expect their IT organisations to realise measurable business and competitive advantages from technology transformation.

Business leaders across New Zealand, and the world, expect their IT organisations to realise measurable business and competitive advantages from technology transformation, reveals a new study from the Business Performance Innovation (BPI) Network, an international executive change advocacy group.

The latest research finds the vast majority of business decision makers are dedicating more time and attention to understanding the strategic implications of disruptive technologies.

In addition, they also want their companies to do a better job of embracing modern technologies and new channels of customer engagement and digital experience.

The study suggests that business leaders are creating a new scorecard for IT organisations, one that is focused on business innovation and growth as primary objectives for technology deployment and management.

It also finds that business executives favour transformation of their IT infrastructures, including the adoption of new cloud-enable hybrid IT models and data centre modernisation.

“From the C-suite to operational units, senior managers are eager to see progress in implementing a broad range of technologies that increase their agility, improve customer experience, and make their companies more competitive,” says Dave Murray, Head of thought leadership, BPI Network.

“We believe this constitutes a new scorecard for IT, with greater emphasis on IT’s role in driving business growth and market differentiation.”

While nearly 70 percent of global managers surveyed by the BPI Network believe technology has become “far more important” to their business, less than half (47 percent) of the 250 executives polled rate the level of innovation in their IT groups as good or very high.

In contrast, 52 percent feel it is poor or just making progress while only 42 percent say their IT groups are doing a good job of becoming a more strategic, responsive and valued business partner, compared to 58 percent who view their transition as poor or only making moderate headway.

The new BPI Network study, sponsored by Dimension Data, in terms of performance metrics claims that 46 percent of survey respondents believe that ensuring the reliability, scalability, and security of IT infrastructures is the most effective metric.

Meanwhile, 38 percent of survey respondents believe an IT organisation’s ability to bring ideas and solutions for furthering business performance is another highly relevant metric.

Slightly less important was the quality and timeliness of application delivery (36 percent), incidence and speed of problem resolution (29 percent), and customer satisfaction with tech-driven business interface (27 percent).

Expectations

Expectations for IT organisations are rising within executive ranks relative to where and how transformational technology can impact business performance.

Customer-facing innovations are the top three areas survey participants see technology uplifting business while 85 percent of business line executives surveyed report they are devoting more time, or are committed to, understanding the strategic implications of technologies.

Relative to their data centres, some 48 percent expect to modernise and upgrade these facilities, and 44 percent expect their companies to migrate to a hybrid IT model combining both on-premise data centre and cloud.

“Companies in every industry and every part of the world are realising that they must embrace a new model of business responsive data centres and networks in order to drive innovation, agility, and speed,” says Richard Garratt, Data Centre Manager, Dimension Data.

“Today¹s discussion around the data centre and cloud-enabled hybrid IT models is rooted in the need to respond more effectively and rapidly to the strategic needs of enterprises in a very fasting changing business environment.”