CIOs: planning for 2003?: Insight

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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CIOs: planning for 2003?

By Vivienne Fisher, ZDNet Australia
December 17, 2002
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/insight/soa/CIOs-planning-for-2003-/0,139023731,120270677,00.htm

More staff and greater bandwidth were among the top requests on the Christmas wish lists of respondents to a recent IT Manager poll. But how are Australia's IT pros gearing up to turn dreams into reality in 2003?

Recent reports have focussed on the possibility of increased spending or changing trends in the issues facing IT departments.

Brooke Galloway, research director at industry analyst IDC Australia, said that its research had found that reducing costs had gained in importance as the top priorities facing Australian CIOs it had surveyed.

The industry analyst carried out a survey with 350 Australian CIOs from organisations which ranged from SMEs to larger corporates, and included government bodies.

"I think the IT department is under a lot of pressure to reduce their costs and deliver more with limited resources," Galloway said. "[This includes] closer scrutiny of IT investments and the value that those investments are going to deliver to the business".

This year's IDC Australia's Forecast for Management found that reducing costs, new hardware and software, as well as aligning IT to business ranked as the top three challenges for CIOs in this country.

Galloway said that the issue of aligning IT with business had consistently ranked highly in its Forecast for Management. "It continues to be a challenge for CIOs and IT departments," she said, citing questions such as 'what role does IT play in the overall business?' and 'how can IT best support the objectives of the organisation?' as examples.

Security for the first time has made it into the top 10 challenges list, Galloway added. "That's being taken quite seriously now by a lot of organisations," Galloway said.

Scrutiny of IT investments was also increasing, she believed. "The scrutiny of investment is a lot tighter...[the] business cases to justify expenditure are looked at more thoroughly by more people for approval."