CIO Agenda, part 3: The battle for credibility

What's in store for IT over the next 12 months? To find out, we polled members of silicon.com's CIO Jury about their outlook and key concerns for 2006. The results make up our second annual CIO Agenda survey. Today Andy McCue examines the challenges facing CIOs in 2006 and how the role will continue to evolve into a more business-focused position.

CIOs face on ongoing battle to establish their credibility in the boardroom and increasing pressure to prove that IT is delivering value to the business in the next 12 months, according to silicon.com's second annual CIO Agenda survey.

We are all working with 'smarter' systems and tools which help monitoring and alerting, however, we need to continue to find a method of actually showing the value of IT.

-- Les Boggia, IT director, Carole Nash

The survey quizzed 12 members of silicon.com's CIO Jury IT user panel to find out what their outlook for 2006 is on IT budgets, spending priorities and the ongoing evolution of the CIO role.

The CIO Agenda results show a continued squeeze on IT budgets and Les Boggia, IT director at insurance firm Carole Nash, said there is more pressure to prove the value of IT, which is still taken for granted by many businesses.

He said: "We are all working with 'smarter' systems and tools which help monitoring and alerting, however, we need to continue to find a method of actually showing the value of IT."

John Odell, group IT director at the BBA Group, said the IT department's struggle for credibility is partly its own making because "IT is still far too complex and prone to failures" and this will impact on the evolution of the CIO into a more business-focused executive.

He said: "The CIO role depends largely on the nature of the business - and what IT contributes - and ranges from 'sidelined and outsourced' to 'trusted member of the executive team'."

For those lucky enough to be in the latter camp, however, it also comes with increased expectation from the board.

Gavin Whatrup, group IT director at advertising agency Delaney Lund Knox Warren & Partners, said: "The title of CIO as distinct from the IT director carries with it an increased assumption of business acumen. The CIO has then to deliver and exceed these expectations if others at the top table are to take the role seriously in the future."

But while some see a continued move away from the perception of being a service provider to being an enabler of business transformation, others are less optimistic about CIOs breaking the boardroom barrier.

Michael Elliot, IT director at toy-maker Hasbro, said: "The CIO on the board movement seems to have cooled, and the CIO as process champion or senior change agent has yet to gather pace."

On the day-to-day front, CIO Agenda respondents cited attracting and retaining key IT skills and talent as one of the biggest issues they have to deal with, and the skills shortage is perhaps one of the reasons why outsourcing and offshoring are on the agenda for many IT bosses in 2006.

Read more of silicon.com's exclusive CIO Agenda series: part one on the 2006 IT shopping list and part two on how IT budgets are shaping up for next year.