CIOs are looking to ‘lighter weight’ technologies including cloud computing and mobility in order to deliver results for their organisation, according to a recent Gartner survey.
Also making the technology priority list are networking, and voice and data communications.
“There is a push for growth in 2011 which is leading to a change in emphasis,” Gartner vice-president and analyst, John Roberts, said in a statement. “CIOs are looking to redefine the essential elements of IT from infrastructure, to cost structure, people and processes, reflecting their focus on getting closer to the business.”
Gartner EXP’s latest annual survey of 2014 CIOs worldwide, including 122 from Australia and New Zealand, was conducted in December 2010 and represents CIO budget plans reported at that time.
According to the latest results, CIO budgets were only slightly increased over 2010 levels in the A/NZ region. The CIOs reported an average budget increase of 1.7 percent over 2010, slightly better than the nominal 0.9 percent worldwide average increase.
While CIO budget projections for 2011 are globally flat, Roberts said it is positive to note that the number of those experiencing budget increases in 2011 outnumbered those reporting a cut.
“2010 saw many economies around the world move from recession to recovery, with enterprises transitioning their strategies from cost-cutting to productivity,” he said.
“As Australia and New Zealand weren’t trying to climb out of the global recession, we saw a much greater difference in priorities between local firms and those in the US or Europe; however, this year they are more closely aligned with their global counterparts as recovery continues.”
Flatter budgets highlight the importance of adopting new infrastructure and operations technologies that offer similar service levels at lower costs, such as virtualisation and cloud services, he said.
The survey also found the top 10 business and technology priorities to include: increasing enterprise growth; creating new products or services; attracting and retaining new customers; improving technical infrastructure; reducing enterprise costs; improving business processes; greater control and management of technology; consolidating business operations; improving enterprise efficiency; and implementing and updating business applications.
