November 18, 2011

IT organizations need to catch up on innovation

The German monthly CIO Magazin recently published the BearingPoint CIO Snapshot which highlights the enormous potential for the IT organization to create business value. The article estimated that CIOs are only using 43 percent of their IT's potential. It claims that while reliability and performance have the highest level of maturity, IT innovation is often taking the back seat.
When put into context with recent statements made by leading Gartner analysts, it becomes clear that IT departments need to take immediate action.

Only 6 percent of CEOs view their IT organization as a cost center. As many as 30 percent of them have identified the opportunity to reduce business costs and create business value by means of IT.

In order to meet these requirements, companies need to automate commodity services and reduce the cost of infrastructures and IT services to a minimum. This in turn frees up staff and financial resources that can be used to advance technological innovation.

Switching to Linux, for example, can help companies achieve significant savings, particularly with respect to their IT infrastructures. In addition to that, there are many untapped opportunities for optimization in the operation of IT systems that, if implemented, will improve flexibility and drive innovation - even for companies that are bound to outsourcing contracts.

Follow these links for more information:

http://www.cio.de/dynamicit/management_strategie/2293393/ (in German)

http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?doc_cd=211740

http://www.realtech.com/wInternational/sap-consulting/sap-it-optimization/sap-it-optimization.php

http://www.realtech.com/wInternational/sap-consulting/sap-management-consulting/sap-management-consulting.php