How CIOs Wield Influence in the C-Suite
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How CIOs Wield Influence in the C-Suite
After shoring up their companies cloud, mobile, social and analytics capabilities, IT leaders have greater license to invest in other technologies. -
Rising Influence
53% of survey respondents said IT leadership drives the adoption of new tech, up from 49% who said IT leadership did this in 2015. -
Objective Enabler
52% said their company approaches tech investments for strategic value, up from 36% who said this a year ago. -
Output Drivers
39% said cloud infrastructure initiatives are most likely to generate productivity gains, while 38% cited analytics and 37% indicated that big data efforts would do so. -
Broad Adoption, Part I
57% are using the cloud to benefit financial/accounting needs, and 34% are using it for enterprise resource planning while 33% are turning to the cloud for customer relationship management functions. -
Broad Adoption, Part II
33% said data analytics efforts can increase operational effectiveness, while 27% said it can bring greater competitive edge in understanding customer trends. Nearly one-fifth said it can enhance the ability to predictively manage aspects of business. -
Forward Spin
25% describe their adoption of predictive analytics as "mature," and another 19% said they're "investigating" the use of these solutions. -
Biggest Barriers for Predictive Analytics Adoption
Data quality issues: 24%, Availability of skilled internal resources: 23%, Understanding what to measure - and how: 22% -
Defensive Effort
58% of survey respondents said their companies are encrypting sensitive information, up from 44% who said this last year. -
Top Sources of Data Privacy/Security Risk
Phishing scams: 49%, Employee-introduced risk: 47%, Cloud migration: 42%, Integration with external systems: 40%, Internal access controls: 35% -
New Reality
88% of survey respondents said their company is using some form of virtual tech or augmented reality in their operations.
The influence of CIOs and other IT leadership execs is growing within the majority of midmarket companies, according to a recent survey from Deloitte. The accompanying report, titled "Technology in the Midmarket: Taking Ownership," indicates that this shift is emerging at a time when these businesses are increasingly viewing tech investment as a strategic value-builder. They're pursuing cloud initiatives, for example, to boost the effectiveness of accounting, enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management efforts. In addition, many are pursuing predictive analytics to boost competitive edge. To ensure they can expand investment into these and other IT areas in a secure manner, CIOs and other tech leaders are convincing the C-suite and other executive leaders to deploy data encryption more than ever. These companies "are increasingly realizing value through early investments in the cloud, social, mobile and data analytics," according to the report. "After using such solutions to leapfrog bigger competitors and differentiate their customers' experience, IT leaders now have greater license to invest in other technologies and attain more influence in setting the technology agenda. (They've gained) greater clout in the C-suite. Compared to just a year ago, IT leaders -- including CTOs, CIOs and IT department leaders -- now have significantly more influence than their bosses in the executive suite when it comes to the adoption of new and emerging innovations." An estimated 500 C-suite execs and managers at midmarket companies took part in the research.
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