Allan Alter

Our first two findings presented evidence that IT organizations are growing. But where will the growth come? Our latest finding covers the hiring outlook for 18 different IT positions, and finds that the demand for new systems and infrastructure is leading to more hiring for IT professionals who can build them. But today, this requires […]

The first set of results from our new IT Organization survey reveals that the future of IT is brighter than many think. IT organizations grew 3.8% on average during the past 12 months, and 45% of respondents expect their companies to add full-time staff in the next year. The need for IT labor is leading […]

After running surveys on ROI in 2003 and 2004, we decided to take a sabbatical. Despite the ongoing pressure to demonstrate the business value of IT, progress doesn’t come swiftly in the field of measurement. So it made sense to wait to see if we could spot real improvement. For more data and analysis, see […]

The last finding in our business value survey brings good news: Both IT and business executives overwhelmingly agree that their company receives business value from its IT investments. That augers well for continued investment in IT. And there’s more good news: 11 of the 20 technologies and services we track meet or exceed business value […]

If most companies really know how to measure the business value of IT, we’d see a clear consensus on which metrics to use, and IT executives would feel those metrics accurately capture business value. But our data indicates just the opposite: Companies use many different metrics, and the most popular metrics are used more often […]

CIO Insight‘s 2003 ROI survey led off with the question, Do You Have Any Faith In Your ROI Numbers? and concluded that most IT executives had little confidence in their ROI numbers. Apparently, little has changed since then. This year’s survey found a high degree of skepticism with business value metrics and figures. We also […]

Despite the amazing technical advances of recent years, and all the talk about agility and real-time information, the information systems that link customer to supplier remain woefully limited. A 2004 report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology estimated that each year, inadequate integration between supply-chain partners costs the automotive and electronics industries combined […]

We begin rolling out the results of our July 2006 survey on business value and ROI with a basic question: are you measuring value at all? The answer, at many companies, is no. And even at companies that do measure value, only about 40 percent of the budget undergoes an ROI analysis. That means many […]

Ever since CIO Insight started surveying IT executives about compliance issues in 2004, we knew there were three questions that really mattered: Have you achieved compliance? At what cost? And was it worth the effort (aside from avoiding scandal and jail)? In past surveys, getting and staying compliant was seen as something to achieve in […]

Compliance goes more smoothly when companies take a holistic approach. Only about 60 percent of companies say compliance processes run smoothly. Those that say so typically comply with regulations in an integrated rather than a piecemeal way, in part by creating a point person for corporate compliance. But even these companies are struggling to turn […]

Despite low expectations, companies have received business benefits from Sarbanes compliance. In 2005, we reported that fewer IT executives expected business benefits from Sarbanes compliance than in 2004. Many still feel that Sarbanes-Oxley is a business distraction. But it turns out the pessimism wasn’t entirely warranted: More than half of respondents complying with Sarbanes-Oxley say […]

Regulations appear to be achieving what the government intended. Investors, not CIOs, are in a better position to judge whether Sarbanes-Oxley is improving their confidence in the numbers reported by companies. But CIOs do know a fair amount about security, and they believe that regulations are making financial, customer and employee data more secure—just what […]