IBM CIO Study: Visionaries See Opportunity, Pragmatists Seize It

In its "The New Voice Of The CIO" study, in which the company surveyed 2,500 CIOs globally, IBM divided high, medium and low growth CIOs by their respective companies' profit-before-tax growth from 2004 to 2007.

According to the study, the more successful CIOs are the ones who bring innovation to the forefront within their organization.

"They inject leading-edge technologies into products and services to foster the future growth and profitability of the enterprise. High-growth CIOs exert a wide span of organizational influence," IBM said.

IBM noted that 64 percent of high-growth CIOs tend to more actively integrate business and IT across the organization. Only one-third of low-growth CIOs do the same.

As a group, high-growth CIOs co-create innovation with the business and proactively suggest better ways to use data and encourage innovation through awards and recognition, according to the study.

IBM identified some CIOs as "able pragmatists," individuals who recognize that the consistent delivery of existing commitments is necessary for a successful IT organization, but that in turn allows for more time and budget for innovation.

"Even as they turn an eye toward the future, high-growth CIOs know they must be both practical and vigilant in meeting everyday IT demands. The visionary may see a new opportunity, but it takes a pragmatist to seize it," wrote IBM in the study.

High-growth CIOs also spend 87 percent more time being a business and corporate vision enabler than a core technology services provider, according to the study.

The strongest organizations look for new ways to improve productivity through strengthened lines of communication, both within the enterprise and externally to business partners and customers, according to IBM. Within the IT organization, about 53 percent of high-growth CIOs use collaboration and partnering technologies to improve communications, while only 33 percent of low-growth CIOs do the same. Across the entire organization, the delta becomes greater. Forty-one percent of high-growth CIOs use collaboration and partnering technologies, compared to 22 percent of low-growth CIOs.

Also in the study, IBM identified "savvy value creators," CIOs who derive greater value by fully leveraging critical information and data. High-growth CIOs proactively craft data into actionable information more than low-growth CIOs, according to the study.

"High-growth CIOs create value for the business in many ways, especially through improved customer interactions. In the next five years, 87 percent of high-growth CIOs expect to seek customers' active input and interaction, compared to 70 percent of low-growth CIOs," according to the study.

Also in the next five years, CIOs expect significant value to come from more emphasis on collaborative relationships with customers, according to IBM. "Sixty-eight percent of high-growth CIOs anticipate their customer interactions will feature world-class integration and transparency, compared to just 44 percent of low-growth CIOs," the study found.

High-growth CIOs also look to cut costs more through standardized business processes (61 percent, compared to 50 percent of low-growth CIOs), according to the study.

Because high-growth CIOs tend to use more collaboration tools within the business, they also are valued more as business leaders, according to IBM. Seventy-four percent of high-growth respondents create business strategy as part of the team, compared to 61 percent of low-growth CIOs.

Perhaps due to their close collaboration with the business, high-growth CIOs also have higher expectations for their company's future business models, according to the study. In five years, 63 percent of high-growth respondents expect their business models to be "well-established, unique and difficult to imitate," compared to just 49 percent of low-growth CIOs.

"Similarly, 60 percent of high-growth CIOs anticipate that their future business models will entail extensive partnering and alternative sourcing vs. 52 percent of low-growth CIOs," according to the study.

The study also found that leveraging business intelligence and analytics is the top priority for CIOs to gain a competitive advantage and improve decision-making ability. About 83 percent of the CIOs surveyed said business intelligence and analytics can enhance their organizations' competitiveness.

One CIO respondent said, "Facts drive decisions. Plans for imbedded analytics need to enable data capture at the customer touch point."

After BI and analytics, virtualization was chosen by 76 percent of CIOs, followed by risk management and compliance (71 percent), customer and partner collaboration (68 percent) and mobility solutions (68 percent) as top plans for enhanced competitiveness.