IT “VERY STRATEGICALLY IMPORTANT” TO THE BUSINESS:

Today’s challenging and hyper-competitive business environment offers CIOs a unique opportunity to assume an expanded role as a strategic technology expert collaborating with the business toward greater success, more revenue and happier customers.

It’s in IT’s hands at the moment, but the window of opportunity is closing as lines of business get tech-savvy, spending more of their budgets on IT projects and re-examining the role that IT plays in advising them. IT can either define a new role for itself which embraces this change, or ignore it and risk becoming increasingly irrelevant to the business.

The survey of 1,300 senior IT leaders worldwide revealed 39% of respondents now see IT as a service broker or consultant to the line of business rather than a full-service provider of all IT services; and 35% of IT spending is occurring outside of the IT department today—and that number is expected to grow to 44% in three years. Other disturbing findings show that just 11% see the role of IT as a developer of new, innovative services and only 14% consider IT as a driver of new business initiatives.

IT should want more than to be the keeper of others’ IT investments, on call to fix problems as they arise. IT leaders should use their knowledge, experience and technology expertise to guide the business toward opportunities that otherwise would not exist if not for IT’s innovation.

There has been some progress for IT, with more than 40% in 2013 (versus 35% in 2011) identifying IT as “very strategically important” to the business, but more must be done to solidify IT as the strategic technology leader within the business. The opportunity is now, and this research report will help IT leaders, including CIOs:

• Understand how their role is changing and how to plan for the future;

• Assess how the organization views IT and its contributions to the business;

• Set strategies for the investments required to re-position the role of IT;

• Use technology to measure, quantify and report on the value IT provides to the business;

• Provide guidance on disruptive technologies to drive competitive advantage;

• Evolve their position from IT support to technology strategist.

We’ll help you verify the functionality of standardized interfaces and identify what you need to do to get your multi-vendor network in the best possible shape. We help consolidate, transform and evolve your service delivery platforms into a strong asset that lets you grow, reduce operating expenditures and offer new end-user services.

For more details visit us @www.urssystems.com