CIOs cite BI as a key to adding value
- By Vikram Kole
Organizations are not yet exploiting significant intelligence opportunities
Majority of CIOs believe that software for delivering business insight and intelligence is one of the key technologies today, although few of them think it is still early days for the strategic exploitation of IT in terms of adding value to the business. Technology to help improve business processes is also cited as important.
Overwhelmingly, CIOs are not looking to short-term, tactical approaches to solve their problems, and do not 
see keeping abreast of new technologies as a priority. Instead, moving on from their major challenge – integrating information in ERP systems – they are now looking to make better use of that information, particularly in relation to customers. CIOs today see customer relationships as a significant or major challenge for their business, making this their number one concern overall.
CIOs have a firm grasp of the business challenges ahead and are working to deliver the business agility and meaningful strategic information that their organizations require to remain competitive. It is also clear they are spinning more plates than ever before. Today’s CIO has to be a manager, a leader, an innovator, a teacher, a policeman and a politician all rolled into one.
Friction between IT and the lines of business continues, with CIOs saying business expectations are increasingly difficult to meet. However, there are signs the situation is getting better. The business managers’ knowledge of IT is improving. However, CIOs themselves are the source of new ideas for business solutions.
The move to form strategic relationships with suppliers also continues to gain momentum, with CIOs preferring to deal with a small number of strategic suppliers. However, whilst monitoring and measuring business value is a priority for CIOs, around many are still trying to negotiate on terms and conditions rather than on the anticipated return on investments. CIOs find it difficult to find suppliers with the ‘right attitude’ and right competencies.
Many organizations lack a joined-up information strategy. Where CIOs focus on addressing business issues via the deployment of a platform for intelligence, they increase the positive impact on the business and hence improve the business’ perceived value of IT.
There is a need for IT to support the business with a platform for enterprise intelligence, which encompasses data integration, business intelligence and business analytics. Having focused on their ERP systems, organizations now need to integrate and data from both internal and external sources to make sound decisions about their future.
Posted on April 1st, 2008 by Vikram Kole
Filed under: Business Intelligence, CIO Community
The full value of many IT projects (BI, CRM, etc.) cannot be realized until a BI solution has been put in place to aggregate the transactional data and feed it back to the managers and staff that can use it. The bigger point is that IT projects cannot be successful in isolation.