The top two IT-related problems are operational incidents and staffing issues, according to a global survey commissioned by the IT Governance Institute (ITGI). A previous top priority, security has fallen to seventh on the list of the top eight IT priorities. Compliance was reported to be the least important problem—likely due to the significant efforts that have been put into information security projects and compliance programs, such as those for Sarbanes-Oxley in the
The survey consisted of 695 interviews with CEO/CIO-level executives in 22 countries, and the full results can be found in the IT Governance Global Status Report 2006.The study assessed the C-suite’s IT governance priorities and actions executives have taken related to IT governance. It is a follow-up to ITGI’s 2003 report and tracks IT governance trends over the past two years.
The study found several improvements since 2003. For instance, IT is included more often on boards’ agendas—63 percent regularly or always include it, compared to 58 percent in 2003.
Even though 57 percent of respondents said IT is very important to the delivery of the corporate strategy, compared to 52 percent in 2003, the study found that CEOs are responsible for governance over IT in only 24 percent of the responding organizations.
"As in 2003, CEOs and business executives are still hesitant to discuss IT governance,” said Everett Johnson, CPA, international president of ITGI. “This finding is troubling because boards and CEOs are ultimately responsible for oversight over all major assets—including IT.”
Other findings include:
- IT is more critical to business than ever. For 87 percent of the participants, IT is quite to very important to the delivery of the corporate strategy and vision.
- For 63 percent of the respondents, IT is regularly or always on the board’s agenda (up from 58% in 2003).
- The IT department at more than half (56 percent) of the organizations surveyed understands and supports the business users’ needs.
- IT outsourcing is no longer seen as the most beneficial way to resolve IT problems—45 percent of
- The number of companies that indicated they had no IT problems increased from 7 percent in 2003 to 21 percent in 2005.
- IT governance is not as easily implemented as respondents originally estimated.
- Only 9 percent of the responding organizations are not considering implementing any IT governance solutions—down from 17 percent in the 2003 survey.
The survey was conducted from July 2005 until October 2005.
One other interesting tidbit from this survey… a lot of non-IT clients often complain about IT being unresponsive and uncommunicative. Not surprising then are the results from the following question: “How regularly does your IT department inform the business about potential business opportunities enabled by new technologies?”
Never or sometimes was the response of 45% of the CEOs and CIOs. Only 55% said regularly or always. It would be interesting to repose the same question to marketing, human resource and communications managers… the finding would be far worse (I suspect). However, those same communications, marketing and human resource managers are just as guilty of failing to properly document, plan and communicate their needs. Instead, non-techie business people lean far too heavily on their IT families. IT is a corporate service, and not necessarily a driver of the business.
© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media