IBM recently released a new Global CIO Study entitled “The New Voice of the CIO”, based upon individual one-on-one interviews with “more than 2,500 CIOs from over 75 countries and 15 industries.”
Much of the analysis and commentary in IBM’s research report relates to attitudes, biases and the balancing of conflicting priorities (in IT resources as well as the time & attention of the CIO.) I feel the findings are valuable, but while the report is quite long, much of the analysis and commentary is presented at the “slogan” level. In this I mean that they do not provide much actionable input on what those who wish to do something based upon the findings should do “on Monday morning”.
Nevertheless, I find the way IBM modeled the various roles of CIOs within their business organizations very useful. I also found the initiative priority list and a few other pieces of information very valuable.
Clearly there is even more value in some of the underlying information, as it can provide a very targeted set of statistics for a specific target audience of a software & services company – segmented by industry / geography and company type (high-growth / low-growth.) The published results (and underlying database) can also form the basis for an individual assessment service – which can help turn them into specific actions for a given company.
One of the interesting findings is the level of importance associated with the CIO acting both as an “Insightful Visionary” and as an “Able Pragmatist” – a need I can wholeheartedly agree with. Figuring out how to interpret the analysis results in a given company’s case and how to turn them into actions is all about bridging that gap.
