Survey of International Information Technology Executives Highlights Urgency of Improved It-Business Alignment

IT executives around the world are seeking to do a better job of aligning IT investments with business goals, but only about half believe they are doing so -- according to a survey sponsored by CA, Inc.

The survey polled 300 CIOs and other top IT executives at companies with more than $250 million in annual revenue. It revealed that 74% of respondents believe that better prioritization of IT spending based on business needs to be a critical IT management goal. Respondents said that the primary drivers for alignment were a desire to avoid spending that yields a low ROI, and the need to ensure fulfillment of business-side demand.

Half of the respondents worldwide indicate their companies are effective in enabling IT to set priorities based on business goals. Respondents in the UK, Germany, Australia and Japan are significantly more likely than those in the U.S. to rate their organizations as successful in this area.

According to the survey, U.S. IT executives are also more likely to be dissatisfied with their organizations’ performance in improving service to end users, controlling costs, and other goals than their counterparts overseas. However, U.S. respondents are more likely than those in other regions to be satisfied with their deployment of automation and virtualization initiatives.

Worldwide, 53% of respondents claim that the biggest barrier to improved alignment is shortfalls in staff skills. In the UK and Germany, however, only 40% see skills as the primary obstacle—while 37% indicate that their most significant challenge is inadequate technology integration.

On the upside, 67% of respondents indicate that the number one success factor in IT-business alignment is standardization of policies and procedures. Respondents from Australia and Japan are most likely to specifically cite best practices frameworks such as ITIL as the top reason they have been able to achieve their goals, even though only 55% of them have adopted, or are planning to adopt, ITIL in the next 12 months—as opposed to 71% of respondents in the UK and Germany and 50% in the U.S.

The survey also found that respondents in the UK and Germany are significantly more likely than those in other regions to report their companies have deployed a CMDB (configuration management database).

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