Far fewer chief information officers are reporting to their chief executives, according to a survey.
Last year, 45% of those responding to a survey by the Society of Information Management said the CIO in their organization reported to their CEO. This year, that number is 31%.
"Why it dropped is perplexing," said Jerry Luftman, vice president of academic affairs at SIM, which counts CIOs and other senior IT professionals among its members. "I'm
hoping it's just a blip."
More CIOs are reporting to the chief financial officer
or the chief operating officer. Twenty-nine percent of
respondents said the CIO reported to the CFO,
compared with 25% last year, and 22% said the
information chief reported to the COO, compared with
16% last year.
Luftman said that the CEO isn't the only decision
maker in a company and that CIOs can be just as
successful when they report to other executives.
"The point is that it helps to have the CIO report to
the CEO, and I have found that [in] those organizations
where the CIO does report to the CEO, their alignment
maturity is clearly ahead of those where they do not,"
said Luftman.
For the past few years, Luftman, who is also a
professor at and executive director of the graduate
program at the Stevens Institute of Technology, has
been measuring business and IT alignment using a number of metrics, including an
organization's communication, its IT governance
process, and the way the business understands
technology and the technology department understands
the business.
Each year, in addition to asking where in the
reporting structure senior IT executives fit, SIM surveys its
members on their top challenges, technology
focus areas, budget and staffing. This year, 140
members participated. The group uses the results to
set its event and education agendas.
SIM members said their biggest management challenge
was attracting, developing and retaining staff, which
was also the No. 1 concern last year. Companies,
Luftman said, "are really hurting in being able to
fill all the spots they have." There needs to be a
concerted effort on the part of all interested parties
to attract students to computer science programs, he
says.
Aligning IT and the business, which has been a
major challenge for CIOs for more than a decade, was
No. 2 on this year's list—as it was last year.
Another surprise was how strongly human resource issues showed up in the survey.
Luftman noted that the top three concerns—staffing,
business/IT alignment, and building up business skills—are all human resource and skills related and that those issues were cited by more than 40% of
respondents.
In fact, human resource and skills issues popped up
all over the list. Even the No. 10 concern—the
evolving CIO leadership role—touched on the subject.
IT leaders realize they need to change, and they need
to develop even more business and industry specific
skills, Luftman said.
Antivirus protection topped SIM's list of the top five
application and technology issues,
followed by business intelligence and networks.
Business process management and continuity planning
and disaster recovery were tied at No. 4.
CIOs are making antivirus a priority, Luftman said,
because they're getting tired of having to deal with viruses and worms.
As for their IT budgets, only 22% of respondents
anticipate a cut in 2008—the same percentage that
expected a budget cut going into 2007. However, only
49% said their budgets would grow in 2008, compared
with 61% who expected a budget increase coming into
this year.
The survey found that most
participants expect their companies to hire more IT
staffers. Fifty-two percent of respondents said their
companies are planning to increase their IT headcount
in 2008, compared with the 46% who expected to bulk up their staffs heading into this year.