News and Trends / Execs' Understanding of IT's Importance Grows

Execs' Understanding of IT's Importance Grows

By Michael Vizard | Posted 2015-08-18

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Execs' Understanding of IT's Importance Grows

A new report finds senior business executives appreciate the transformational impact of IT more than ever. This bodes well for the channel.
Importance of Technology to the Business

A full 97% said technology is more important today compared with five years ago, with 65% saying it has become "far more important" to their organizations.
IT's Strategic Value

Nearly half (47%) said they're spending more time on understanding the strategic implications of new technologies; another 40% said they're "working on it."
Most Pressing IT Imperatives

The three most-pressing IT imperatives are improving responsiveness to ever-changing business requirements (37%); creating digital experiences that provide a competitive advantage (30%); and delivering applications faster, better and at low cost (30%).
Areas in Need of Technology Transformation

The top three areas that would benefit most from transformative technologies are operational efficiency and effectiveness (52%); customer experience, monetization and retention (33%); and organizational alignment, culture and collaboration (28%).
Benefits of Data Center and Cloud Transformation

The top three benefits of data center and cloud transformation are increased agility and responsiveness to business changes (70%), greater cost efficiencies (57%) and faster time-to-innovation for new applications (46%).
Data Center Transformation Plans

The top three actions executives plan to implement are migrating to hybrid IT that blends traditional data centers with the cloud (45%); modernizing and upgrading (45%); and consolidating servers (32%).
Most Transformative Technologies

The three most transformative technologies to give a competitive advantage are real-time intelligence from embedded sensors—Internet of things (34%); always-on, highly scalable and Web-based models (33%); and social media data mining and more efficient customer engagement (29%).
IT Innovation Ratings

Only 14% rate the level of innovation in IT organizations as "very high," versus 15% that said it was "poor." Most ratings were in the middle: "making progress" (37%) or "good" (32%).
Ability to Execute IT Transformation

Only 15% said "very well," while 10% said "poor." Most were in the middle: 28% said "good," and 44% said "making progress."
Business Metrics Used to Rate IT

The top three metrics they would use to evaluate IT performance and effectiveness are reliability, scalability and security of IT infrastructure (43%); ideas and solutions for furthering business performance (40%); and quality and timeliness or app delivery (35%).
Barriers to New Tech Adoption

The top five barriers to adoption are gaining consensus and support for new technology investments (43%); determining needs and optimal solution available (42%); minimizing information security risk, vulnerability and threats (34%); successfully implementing and gaining organizational adoption (31%); and integration of back-end systems with customer-facing channels (27%).
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In the last several years, a better understanding of the strategic role that IT has in disrupting entire business models has taken hold among many senior executives. To underscore this, the Business Performance Innovation (BPI) Network, an advocacy group, collaborated with solution provider Dimension Data to survey 250 business leaders and found that they do indeed understand how technology is more important today than five years ago. Yet only 14 percent said they are very good at embracing innovative technologies, while 15 percent said they are very good at executing IT transformations. Major obstacles to adoption include gaining consensus and support for new tech investments; determining the needs and optimal solution available; minimizing information security risk, vulnerability and threats; and integrating back-end systems with customer-facing channels. The trouble is that not enough leaders are sufficiently informed about IT to determine what constitutes a strategic technology investment, the survey shows. Putting these factors together, it's clear that business leaders need help from trusted IT solution provider partners in the channel.