Logicalis: CIOs under pressure to deliver transformation

Logicalis has highlighted the strain that CIOs are being put under and charted the move by many over the past year into a more strategic role.

Digital transformation has changed the rules of the game for many tech managers, with them not only expected to deliver innovation but to ensure the infrastructure can cope with the changes.

Logicalis has warned that the pressure is building on CIOs to deliver strategy and keep the light on, which could well be a sweet spot for trusted channel advisors to step in and take some of the burden.

The channel player surveyed CIOs across the globe and found that 61% have spent more time on strategic planning in the last year and not far off half (43%) are being measured on contribution to revenue growth.

"Digital transformation has impacted almost every industry, which has led to the role of the CIO increasing in importance. CIOs are now expected to be responsible for business performance at a strategic level which has added to the time that they are expected to spend on maintaining IT infrastructure," said Mark Rogers, CEO at Logicalis.

CIOs revealed that they were spending more time ensuring that the business was secure and around a third of the day was spent looking after the day-to-day management of technology.

“This increase in strategic responsibility - should be embraced by businesses and CIOs alike - because technology does hold the key to unlocking competitive advantage and operational efficiency. However, these survey results are stark in their findings and show the increased amount of pressure being exerted on CIOs," said Rogers.

"Organisations must ensure their CIO is fully supported and has the necessary resources to carry out their job effectively. Businesses are pushing their CIOs to understand more about the line of business and input on strategy, whilst CIOs are still under pressure carrying out day-to-day activities. Clearly, this needs to be addressed," he added.

The sense that CIOs are under increasing pressure has been one of the emerging consequences of digital transformation and in April last year ,Insight UK also warned that IT leaders were coming under strain.

“Digital transformation is essential to every industry: more than half of the listed Fortune 500 companies have disappeared this century as newer, more digitally-driven competitors have taken their place. However, making a success of it is about much more than just investing," said Alex Guillen, Go-To-Market Manager at IT solutions provider Insight UK.

"While $1.2 trillion is a significant sum, organisations can’t simply write a cheque to invest in digital transformation and expect to magically transform. Recent research showed 57 percent of IT teams already believe they are being “set up to fail”, thanks to the pressure to support digital innovation while also maintaining core infrastructure and operations. Organisations must ask themselves how they alleviate this pressure and transform workplace culture and operating models to set themselves up for success," he added.