* What's keeping CIOs up at night?
The Society for Information Management last month released the findings of its 2005 survey. Based on responses from senior IT leaders drawn from SIM’s membership, the results offer a glimpse into CIOs’ attitudes regarding job challenges, technology developments and budgeting and staffing outlook.
What’s keeping CIOs up at night? The top IT management concerns are as follows: IT and business alignment; Security and privacy; attracting, developing and retaining IT professionals; IT strategic planning; introducing rapid business solutions; business process reengineering; true return on IT investment; measuring the value of IT investment; speed and agility; IT governance and complexity reduction.
As compared to last year, introducing rapid business solutions, true return on investment and measuring the value of IT investment were all new to what they refer to as their top 10 list.
Actual 2005 IT budgets were generally greater than in 2004, with 62.8% reporting an increase. Another 19.8% said the 2005 budget was less than 2004, while 17.4% said it remained the same. Looking to 2006, 50.6% of respondents are projecting their IT budgets to be larger than this year’s, and another 29.4% anticipate flat budgets. The remaining 20% anticipate having less money to work with than they did in 2005. For both 2005 and 2006, the biggest chunk goes to staffing costs.
And speaking of staff, 40.5% expect their 2006 IT headcount to be greater than 2005. Staffing levels will remain flat for 42.8% of respondents, while 16.7% anticipate staffing reductions next year.
As noted above, retention remains a concern for IT leaders. They identified the top six ways of retaining staff as follows: open and honest communications, good worker-supervisor relationship, challenging work experience, trust among co-workers, opportunities for advancement, and balance between work and outside life.
For more information about the SIM study, click here. And I want to hear from you. What do you see as the biggest IT challenges you’ll be grappling with in 2006? Are you anticipating having a bigger IT budget to work with and what is your top technique for retaining top talent? Let me know at aschurr@nww.com
