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IT vs. Business Roles in the Cloud and Mobile Era

 
 
By Gina Roos  |  Posted 2015-07-08
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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    1 - IT vs. Business Roles in the Cloud and Mobile Era
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    IT vs. Business Roles in the Cloud and Mobile Era

    A new study finds that a large percentage of IT pros and business execs believe decisions about technology focus more intensely on business objectives.
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    2 - Budget Control
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    Budget Control

    Only 19% of companies said IT still owns the entire tech budget. Business units often have their own funds: discretionary (33%), split evenly with the IT function (20%), the majority of the budget (9%) or complete control (19%).
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    3 - Decision-Making
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    Decision-Making

    57% of business execs said tech objectives are more business-focused, compared with 48% of IT respondents. What's more, 33% of business respondents said the final decision on technology is made outside the IT function, compared with 29% of IT respondents.
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    4 - IT Confidence Remains High
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    IT Confidence Remains High

    79% of IT respondents are "extremely" or "highly" confident in their ability to apply technology to business goals.
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    5 - IT Still Drives Decisions
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    IT Still Drives Decisions

    70% of all respondents said IT still has a primary role in tech decisions, while 28% believe it's a level playing field for all departments.
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    6 - New Business Goals
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    New Business Goals

    54% of all respondents said the top criteria for new systems is to improve innovation/build new products, followed by reaching new customers/markets (51%), speeding up processes and operations (49%), improving internal communications (40%) and lowering overall cost (40%).
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    7 - Gaining Knowledge
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    Gaining Knowledge

    Business units are gaining knowledge about available technology from personal research (53%), internal IT department (51%), business events (47%), technology events (41%), peers (38%) and third-party firms (34%).
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    8 - Rogue IT
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    Rogue IT

    Only 41% of business units with their own technology budget use it to procure technology on their own or start independent projects with outside firms.
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    9 - Positive Relationships
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    Positive Relationships

    52% of business respondents believe "there is a good relationship between the IT function and all business units," and 44% said "the IT function plays a critical support role in our organization."
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    10 - Becoming Better Partners
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    Becoming Better Partners

    60% of business respondents would like IT to have better knowledge of business objectives, better communications of IT concerns (52%), accept/explore ideas from business units (50%), make proactive tech recommendations (45%) and build a catalog of services (32%).
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    11 - Learning Curve
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    Learning Curve

    Integration is still difficult with cloud/mobile adoption. Top difficulties include integration taking longer than expected (45%) and integration costs exceeding budget (37%).
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    12 - Mobility Drivers
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    Mobility Drivers

    The top changes mobility is driving in front-end systems include increased demand for workflow efficiency (42%), greater development effort (41%), greater focus on user experience (41%) and new processes for mobility availability (39%).
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    13 - Data Challenges
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    Data Challenges

    The biggest factors contributing to data challenges include the skill level of analytics tools (49%), tracking data through various systems (46%), storing large volumes of data (46%) and extracting data from new sources (46%).
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    14 - Security Concerns
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    Security Concerns

    The biggest factors contributing to security challenges include understanding the new threat landscape (57%), preparing plans for possible breaches (48%), integrating new technology for security (48%) and educating the workforce on security issues (45%).
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    15 - Cloud Changes
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    Cloud Changes

    The cloud is driving changes in data storage (40%), expectation for lower costs (35%), less tolerance for downtime (34%) and new processes for migrating cloud systems (33%).
 

The availability of technology solutions, driven by cloud and mobile computing, has brought about a sea change in interdepartment dynamics at many organizations. In a new study from CompTIA, nearly half the IT professionals and 57 percent of business executives surveyed said decisions about technology focus more intensely on business objectives. This shift is affecting budgeting, decision-making and the implementation of new business systems, according to the survey. This also means key changes are ahead for IT departments that once maintained a high degree of control in selecting technology solutions. While IT still plays a key role in new technology purchases, final decisions are moving outside the IT department. "Many departments besides IT—finance, marketing, sales and human resources—are more actively involved as ideas are generated, discussions take place and decisions are made on technology purchases and implementations," CompTIA said. IT pros must make changes to become better partners with other business departments and deal with new challenges around cloud, mobile, big data and security. Here are key takeaways from the study, which is based on a survey of 650 IT pros and business execs.