Business-Led Tech Spending Drives Innovation

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Can-Do Spirit
70% of business executives are willing to run their own technology projects. -
Turf Guarding
60% of IT pros believe business-led IT always creates risks, and less than 40% think it should be permitted. -
Tech Acquisitions
40% of all technology spending is now managed outside of IT's budget. -
Well-Equipped
Nearly half of business-led IT spending is dedicated to innovating new capabilities, compared with 7% in a traditional CIO-managed budget. -
Teamwork Tools
60% of the business-led IT budget allocated to product or services innovation is intended to support collaboration tools. -
Auto-Pilot
More than 60% of business-led IT budgets designated for production/supply chains and finance/HR functions is spent on process automation. -
Data Crunch
37% of the business-led IT budget designated for sales and marketing efforts is set aside for analytics. -
Consumer-Minded
37% of the business-led IT budget for customer service is used for the implementation and oversight of customer-interface systems. -
Unhappy Workers
Just 42% of employees are satisfied with the collaboration tools their company provides, and less than two out of five are happy with their analytics and mobility resources. -
Priority List
38% of employees surveyed feel that it's "most important" for devices and apps to be as easy to use and intuitive as possible.
As the roles of IT and business continue to blur, it's inevitable that an increasing share of technology spending is now overseen by non-tech managers. But there's a bright side to this trend: It's paving the way for more innovation, according to a recent survey from CEB (formerly known as the Corporate Executive Board). The accompanying report, titled "Executive Guidance: Harnessing Business-Led IT," reveals that IT professionals harbor significant reservations about these developments, especially when it concerns increased risks. But findings also show that the input of business is increasing capabilities related to collaborative tools, automation and customer-facing interface systems. "Business-led IT is another—often better, cheaper—way to achieve the goals of the IT department, particularly when it comes to innovation and testing out new digital capabilities," says Andrew Horne, managing director at CEB. "The goal is to improve the success rate of these technology investments, regardless of who came up with the idea." An estimated 16,000 global professionals, representing all organizational levels, took part in the research.