This is part two of a series covering the results of CIO Agenda 2007. First part is here.

Business priorities

Companies know they must prepare for the increased competition and they place “Improving business processes” as they number one priority for 2007. In 2006 “Improving business processes” was also on the first place indicating longer term planning.

“The need for revenue growth” is a close second as expected. Due to increased competition this year, the business leaders must pay closer attention to this one and bring it to second place from the fourth place in 2006.

On the third place is also a priority related to increased competitiveness: “Improving the effectiveness of the enterprise workforce”. Interestingly this was not in the first ten last year. One can speculate that after investments in tools and machines, now the business leaders decided to invest also in the workforce.

The extensive growth phase is also indicated by the place of “Controlling enterprise-wide operating costs”, 5 in Romania and 2 world wide (according to Gartner).

IT Budgets

IT budgets overall increase by 23% in 2007 versus 2006. This indicates a strong commitment of business leaders towards IT. Business leaders are convinced that investing in IT will help them achieve their goals.

IS Organization Capabilities

IT organizations have the funds they need (they just received a 23% increase in their budget) and deliver services to meet business expectations.

Most of the IT organizations also deliver the technology innovations needed by the business and have the necessary flexibility to adapt to current extensive growth phase.

Despite having funds and delivering excellent services, the IT organizations do not have enough business skills and CIO is not a player in business strategy. The two are connected: without an organization with strong business skills, the CIO cannot be a player in business strategy.

The CIOs must take this opportunity – increased budgets, extensive growth of the enterprise – and work hard to build an organization with strong business skills. This is a window of opportunity that will last probably 2 years.

This is part two of a series covering the results of CIO Agenda 2007. First part is here.

In 2007 IT budget grow by 23% to help companies to grow while facing an increased competition.

On Tuesday 19th CIO Council Romania released its second CIO Agenda survey. The survey includes input from 25 Romanian CIOs:

• IT budgets totaling more than EUR 270 millions
• Average IT budget of respondents is EUR 10 million

Provides a comprehensive view of CIO priorities, initiative, decisions and issues including:

• Business expectations for CIOs and IT
• CIO strategies and priorities

Romanian market
Competition is increasing on the Romanian market: in 2006 only 5% of the companies have their growth plans challenged while in 2007 this increased to 15%. In 2006 85% of the companies aim to grow faster than the market while in 2007 this decrease by 10% to 75%.

Paths to growth
Most of the companies want to “play safe”: 53% want to increase in the same market with new products or services. In Romania most of the markets grow, some of them with double digits CAGR. Now it’s the moment when the pie is sliced and everyone wants a bigger slice.
Romania is in a consolidation wave: 19% of the companies aim to grow by acquiring other companies or making partnerships.

14% will expand into new markets.

A surprisingly small percentage, only 14% will increase relationships with current customers. This indicates that most of the companies are in an extensive growth phase. Most of the companies want to get new clients, and current customers are sometimes neglected.

This is part one of a series covering the results of CIO Agenda 2007. The second part is here.

The corporate IT is invaded by the consumer world: wireless, PDA, messenger, Skype, you name it!

The peoples shops around for entertainment and convenience. While corporate IT is not expected to provide entertainment, it is judged by the convenience it provides.

I have heard countless times complain of IT senior executives about their users that demand convenience.

Users expect corporate intranet to rival Google, purchasing process to be friendly like Amazon, to contact workmates via messenger like they contact their friends.
They expect corporate phonebook to have at least LinkedIN functionalities, expect knowledge management systems like Wikipedia and the list can go on for ever.

The average IT executive thinks the corporate IT is like army: you have to suffer to strengthen yourself! Rough edges are not only accepted but expected. One has to fight with cumbersome processes, bloated web pages, and weird rules to perform even the most simple tasks.

They position themselves like the drill sergeant of corporate IT!

Even if your CFO will be happy with the cost reduction you achieved, it will be very hard to live with a crowd of angry customers.

Your users will compare your offering with the convenience industry outside and you will be in real trouble!

These days most employees are knowledge workers. They don’t need punch clocks, complicated processes or bloated software.

The first priority for you is to remove any obstacle preventing them to achieve highest intellectual productivity. Second give them tools they like and use happily. As Ubuntu creator Mark Shuttleworth use to say:

Nice IS a feature!

It is now time to throw away your campaign hat and bring in a charmed flute!

…many vendors today say it is IT that makes the difference to enabling business innovation. Mark Twain’s response to such a claim would likely have been to repeat another of his famous remarks: “Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she has laid an asteroid.”

Dan McLean of Globe and Mail analyze in his recent article one of the usual claims made by IT vendors. Today: IT driven innovation.

In their pursuit of selling another bottle of “snake-oil” SAP turn around a survey of “Canada’s leading IT executives” to show the link between IT an innovation.

Dan digs a little in the survey read it correctly:

The telling point may be what respondents ranked as the top benefit of IT. Operational efficiency was voted No. 1 by 36 per cent and business productivity came out on top in the minds of 26 per cent.

By comparison, business innovation ranked No. 1 with only 6 per cent of respondents — behind the IT benefit of mobilizing work forces, which was cited by 8 per cent. And yet, SAP’s press release announced the survey results under the headline: “Canada’s Road to Business Growth and Innovation Runs Through the IT Department.”

IT can do a lot for any organization, but many times it collapses under the pressure created by vendor hype. If you read the marketing materials you’ll think that every vendor has laid out an asteroid.
IT is a tool, a very powerful tool, a very smart tool, but only a tool. A tool cannot be smarter than the one using it.

Thanks Dan for the head up and people, go read the original article!

Did you ever wonder what Egypt, Venice and legacy application have in common?

Egypt is a “legacy” country. It lives only through history. People are interested in Egypt only for the pyramids and temples. There is no modern Egypt. It is like old applications keep alive only for historical reporting purposes.

Venice is a “legacy” city. Most of the people came here for the history: San Marco Square, Grand Canal, and “Ponte di Rialto”. One can also see “Teatro la Fenice” or the biennale. There is still life in Venice, the art is still flowing and the old city is still a major art and culture center. Venice is an old application with current usage

Next time when you read your application list, think of sand and desert. Do you really want to spend money on that application? While Egypt monuments have a significance for the world history, your application does not.

Prune your applications; increase the support fees in your chargeback system; do whatever it takes to eliminate “ancient history” from your date center.

I found an intriguing article from The Tech Zone via Business Innovation Insider.

I will just quote from the article:

IT people (e.g. analysts and programmers) exhibit a lot of blue collar characteristics, e.g., repetition in types of work performed, they do not dress or act like professionals, and regularly punch in and out of work with little interest in going above and beyond the call of duty. […] Blue collar workers can perform technical tasks as well as manual tasks, such as those found in manufacturing and assembly; and although they are classified as exempt workers paid a salary, they tend to behave like hourly workers instead. Further, there are plenty of blue collar workers who were just as educated, if not more so, than a lot of the programmers and analysts on their staffs. One executive even went so far as to tell me about a couple of craftsman machinists he had with MBA degrees…

What do you think? How do you feel?