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Two-thirds of Companies Not Fully Measuring IT Value, Neglecting Competitive Advantage

A nine-country survey of 1,217 IT professionals reveals that enterprises worldwide believe they are realizing value from their IT investments -- yet they cannot be sure, as fewer than half have a shared understanding of value across the enterprise, and two-thirds fail to fully measure it.

Conducted by ISACA, an association of 86,000 IT governance, security and assurance professionals, the survey found that half of the respondents believe they are realizing between 50-74 percent of expected value from their IT investments, and nearly a fifth believe they are realizing 75-100 percent. Yet, half measure the actual value only "to some extent," while one in 10 does not measure it at all.

At the same time, half of the respondents reported that accountability for such value measurements is delegated to the IT function itself, instead of remaining with the business, where it belongs.

Additionally, despite the challenging economy, 30 percent of companies are increasing their investments in IT this year, while only 13 percent plan to reduce spending and 14 percent plan to freeze it at the current level. In the UK this average isn't replicated, as just 19 percent of organizations intend to increase their investment while 20 percent plan to cut spending across the board.

Interestingly, among the benefits organizations receive from their IT-related investments, respondents cited "improved customer service" (35 percent) and "cost reduction" (24 percent) as the two most important. Somewhat surprisingly, only 16 percent named "new or improved products and services" as the top benefit. India stands out, with improved customer service as the top-ranked benefit, at 45 percent.

The survey identified some regional differences -- specifically between established economies and fast-growing ones. Of the nine countries surveyed -- Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Mexico, the UK and the US -- the India-based participants were the most advanced in adopting effective value management practices and assigning accountability for those investments to the business. Seventy percent of respondents' organizations in India have a framework for selecting the IT-related investments that will result in the greatest value and 57 percent fully measure value. In addition, almost half of Indian organizations are increasing IT-related investment based on potential or expected contribution to business value, and 63 percent said there is a cross-departmental understanding of what constitutes value in IT investment -- a figure significantly lower in the UK, at just 22 percent, and the US, at 34 percent. Top-down management responsibility for optimizing IT investment was also evident, with one-third of respondents indicating board or board chair level.

[Full Article] Oct-03-2009

Despite Economy, Organizations Face Significant Information Technology (IT) Talent Gap

According to new research from Deloitte, IT functional leaders have an increasingly clear understanding of what they must do to effectively support their organizations' business strategies. However, existing IT talent strategies and programs appear to be falling short - leaving IT without the talent necessary to do the job.

Based on a global survey of 306 IT decision-makers and executive business managers, and 15 subsequent one-on-one interviews with select respondents, current IT talent issues are having an impact on IT and business performance. Based on the research, Deloitte identifies two major IT talent gaps: growing talent gap for IT leaders and project managers; and the critical need for improved IT talent strategies and program execution. Additional key findings included:

The majority of survey respondents (51percent) strongly believe talent issues have limited their organization's productivity and efficiency.

Half of the respondents say the talent shortage is limiting their ability to innovate, which is the strategic core of the benefits that technology can bring to a business.

Significant numbers of respondents indicate that IT talent issues are having a material impact on other key dimensions of business success - growth (58 percent), speed to market (54 percent), quality (53 percent) and customer relationships (53 percent).

The vast majority of IT organizations surveyed expect to expand their workforces over the next three-to-five years. In fact, nearly half of the respondents (47 percent) expect to see at least 5 percent annual growth in the IT workforce over that period - even as the pool of experienced and qualified IT workers in many countries gets smaller.

Deloitte offers additional recommendations for organizations to consider as they address current and future IT talent challenges:

Establish clear roles and responsibilities. CIOs and their management teams need to own and lead the IT talent challenge. However, HR/talent functional leaders and teams have significant opportunities to improve their strategic partnership with IT by improving their capabilities and focusing on services that address the unique talent needs of the IT function.

Improve workforce analysis and planning capabilities. Leverage internal and external data to provide clearer views of long-term talent trends, both in terms of supply (e.g., demographics, baby boomer retirements - and longer time to retirement, education, and global labor markets) and demand (e.g., new business requirements and technology advances).

Refine global sourcing strategies. Explore innovative ways to manage a diverse, global workforce that is increasingly comprised of non-traditional resources, including contractors, outsourcing vendors, retirees and offshore staff.

Strengthen alignment between IT and business priorities. Rotate people from IT into the business and from the business into IT. In an environment with significant outsourcing and global dispersion of IT workforces, these rotation programs are even more important because building and managing relationships with business units is one of the retained IT team’s primary responsibilities.

Learn how to manage a multi-sourced, global workforce. Without an improved approach to sourcing and managing a global workforce, global sourcing can be more of a hindrance than a help and organizations can end up in challenging situations where sourced employees are performing roles that could be staffed internally and the sourced labor costs are higher than they should be.

Pay more attention to on-boarding. In particular, companies should focus more effort on on-boarding for contractors and other non-traditional resources. Current processes are generally designed to meet the needs of traditional in-house staff. That, however, is not what the IT workforce looks like any more.

[Full Article] Oct-03-2009

Recession Spurs Growth in Hosted Contact Center Infrastructure Market

DMG Consulting LLC, a provider of contact center and real-time analytics market research and consulting services, has published the 2009 Hosted Contact Center Infrastructure Market Report. The Report illustrates that even though 2008 was a down year for most technology products, the hosted contact center infrastructure market posted impressive growth and the first half of 2009 is proving to be even better. DMG's research showed that the worldwide economic recession actually drove many types of organizations in all verticals to consider hosted contact center infrastructure solutions. It is interesting to note that many of these companies are not risk takers in the classic sense, but rather companies that see hosting as an opportunity to do business differently, without a significant initial investment.

Growth of this market can be attributed to several factors including better, more stable and feature-rich solutions, increased contact center domain expertise and implementation best practices, and flexible pricing. The future is very promising for hosted contact center solutions, even after the recession abates. DMG forecasts that growth for the hosted contact center infrastructure market will be 30 percent, 35 percent and 20 percent each year from 2009 to 2011, respectively.

[Full Article] Oct-03-2009

Economic Downturn Leading to Decline in Employee Commitment, Morale

The cost-cutting actions that employers have been making to deal with the economic crisis have contributed to a sharp decline in the morale and commitment of their workers, especially top performers, according to an annual survey by Watson Wyatt, a global consulting firm, and WorldatWork, an international association of human resource professionals.

The 2009/2010 U.S. Strategic Rewards Survey found that employee engagement levels for all workers at the companies surveyed have dropped 9 percent since last year, and close to 25 percent for top performers. Additionally, 36 percent of top performers say their employer's situation has worsened in the past 12 months and the number who would recommend others take jobs at their company has declined by nearly 20 percent. Compared with last year, top-performing employees are 26 percent less likely to be satisfied with advancement opportunities at their company. They are also 14 percent less likely to want to remain with their company versus take a job elsewhere.

The survey also found that top-performing employees are 29 percent less confident in management's ability to grow the business. And 41 percent believe that pay and benefit changes made by their employer in the past year have had a negative effect on work quality and customer service. The survey was conducted in May 2009 and is based on responses from 1,300 full-time workers at large U.S. employers.

The survey also found that most top-performing employees say they aren't expecting to receive the same bonus or pay increase as they have in the past, even though historically companies have rewarded them with pay commensurate with their performance. More than six in 10 (61 percent) say their companies have reduced or suspended bonuses, while only 35 percent agree their employers reward top employees for performance. Additionally, 43 percent of top performers said individual performance expectations have increased since last year, while one-third (32 percent) say their company's financial performance goals have increased.

Other findings from the survey include:

Regardless of whether companies downsized, 89 percent of employers report taking at least one or two actions to minimize the extent of workforce downsizing. On average, survey participants report taking 3.5 different actions.

Nearly three out of four (72 percent) employers have gone through a restructuring or made layoffs since the economic downturn began last year.

[Full Article] Sep-27-2009

Worldwide Security Software Market on Pace to Grow 8% in 2009

The worldwide security software market will total $14.5 billion in 2009, an 8% increase from 2008, according to Gartner, Inc. In 2008, it grew at 19%, and Gartner anticipates the market to grow 13% in 2010 as revenue will total $16.3 billion. In Europe, the security software market will total 3.2 billion Euros in 2009, representing 7% growth from 2008.

In 2009, consumer security will remain the largest segment (in terms of total software revenue) in the security software market, representing 25 per cent of the total market. Gartner estimates it will account for $3.6 billion, growing 4% in 2009. The enterprise security software market formed by a number of segments such as endpoint protection platform, email security boundary and user provisioning is predicted to account for $10.9 billion, reaching 9% growth in 2009.

[Full Article] Sep-27-2009

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