CIOs expect dramatic changes in IT and to adopt new technologies and raise their competitive advantage. Mark McDonald, group vice president and head of research for Gartner Executive Programs said that. “Leaders will implement new infrastructure technologies to achieve increased efficiency and to redirect IT resources to create greater business impact. Pursuit of that leadership agenda will raise complex issues ranging from re-imaging IT’s role in their organization to the creative destruction necessary to break old practices and redeploy resources to new initiatives.”
For CIOs in the Middle East growth is a core expectation for 2011 and beyond. This is a change in emphasis and priorities for the business strategies and business expectations for IT which more recenlty has been more focused on reducing enterprise costs and improving business processes .
The average IT organization dedicates 66% of its budget to day-to-day operations leaving little room for transformation of business strategy. Internet service-based technologies ‘the cloud’ may free up 35 to 50% of infrastructure and operational resources for innovation and growth. This is creating a new cycle, based on CIOSs creating and realizing new sources of value, in addition to cost-effective IT operations
The worldwide CIO survey ‘Reimagining IT: The 2011 CIO Agenda”was conducted by Gartner from September to December 2010 and represents reported CIO budget plans with responses from 2,014 CIOs representing over $160bn in corporate and public-sector IT spending across 50 countries and 38 industries.
