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Local CIOs catching up to international trends

Cape Town - Local Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are on-par with developed country executives on the deployment of new technologies, a survey shows.

According to data from research firm Gartner, local CIOs are more focused on adopting new 'internet of everything' (IoT) technologies than their counterparts in developed countries.

The research found that only 8% of local CIOs feel that IoT sensors are not relevant, versus 27% globally.

Gartner said that shift was, in part, being driven by local needs which dictate increased spending on technology to support business operations.

"This can be attributed to the extractive industries - mining and oil drilling. For example, Anglo American, a global mining company founded in South Africa, reported that the internet of things and autonomous vehicles radically improve yields and effectiveness in mining."

International trends

CIOs in Africa are also among the early adopters of networked communications, the survey found.

While executives in developed countries focus largely on infrastructure and marketing - a trend followed by locals - there is significant differentiation in that communication technologies rank higher.

"This reflects the increased opportunity, in many African countries and across the continent, of improving communications network capacity and catalysing business (including cloud). Issues with bandwidth availability are still a cloud adoption showstopper in many instances," Gartner said.

Despite the value to organisations of technology, cost emerged as a key consideration for CIOs.

At least 78% of local CIOs expected increases in their budget, versus 46% of internationals. Seven percent of locals expected budgets to decrease, compared with 16% of their international colleagues.

"IT cost certainly cannot be ignored, but if it is the dominant metric, the message is to generate value from IT by reducing IT cost. Since IT cost is normally only a small percentage of revenue or of overall business costs, even a substantial reduction has very limited impact on the bottom line," said Gartner.

Survey results show that 85% of local CIOs use cost as a major metric for determining corporate IT performance versus 77%, internationally.

"CIOs in Africa should, therefore, consider flipping the focus from reducing IT cost per dollar of revenue to increasing revenue per dollar of IT cost. This simple but powerful inversion puts the focus on what a business is all about - productivity and profitability - there is no limit to value creation," said Gartner.


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