More on Tomorrow’s CIOs

InformationWeek surveyed 720 senior business technology executives; 537 CIOs/VPs of IT and 182 corporate managers. Here is some of the insight that came of that survey. (The first percentage is the response from CIOs/VPs of IT, and the second percentage is the response from corporate managers.

What are the major obstacles confronting CIOs?

The fact that IT is still viewed as a cost center (70%/66%)

The burden of ongoing IT maintenance (57%/50%)

The fact that top management lacks technology vision (41%/30%)

Inability to attract and retain top business technology talent (31%/29%)

A risk-averse corporate culture (29%/25%)

The fact that more business executives are involved in technology strategy (22%/24%)

Diminished influence of the CIO in the senior management ranks (20%/13%)

What will drive the CIO to be more of a business leader?

Need to manage or optimize business processes (78%/78%)

Customer needs (59%/63%)

The CIO's own ambition and foresight (57%/29%)

My company's business situation/health (38%/26%)

Pressure from the CEO, CFO, or other C-level executives (33%/37%)

The economy's current condition/health (29%/29%)

What are the main opportunities for CIOs today?

Improve and/or innovate new business processes (60%/41%)

Increase employee productivity via new collaboration tools (28%/28%)

Facilitate companywide innovation (27%/16%)

Cut business and IT costs (26%/24%)

Use customer or business data to drive sales growth (24%/38%)

Use customer or business data to influence new product development (19%/30%)

Lead company's sales and growth efforts on the Web (10%/11%)