Advocacy

Transform to Better Perform CIO Roundtable
Developing a New Scorecard for IT
ExCeL Convention Center | London, UK

In a survey of global executives, business leaders overwhelmingly indicate the strategic importance of technology is at an all-time high within their organizations. Yet, the pace of technology change and innovation is lagging expectations. The survey suggests that a new scorecard is emerging for IT, which places greater emphasis on IT’s role in driving competitive advantage, customer value and business growth. The findings of this global survey demonstrate that Europe is even more eager than their global counterparts to adopt transformative, efficient technologies and initiatives, which led us to set up our final 2015 roundtable in London. A select group of leading IT executives in the region explored how IT can respond to the challenge and create a new more collaborative relationship with the business groups, as well as what new models and approaches must emerge to improve the speed, agility and quality of IT innovation.

For more information on this insightful roundtable, email Sally Lopez:
slopez@bpinetwork.org.

Europeans Seeking Efficiencies Through IT Transformation

Like most of their colleagues around the world, European business executives are eager to adopt transformative technologies to help grow their companies. But unlike most, they’re looking for greater efficiencies more than other benefits, according to a regional analysis of a global BPI Network survey

Asked what area of their business would benefit the most from smarter use of cloud-based hybrid IT technologies, a solid two-thirds of the respondents chose operational efficiency and effectiveness as their top response. That was about 27 percent higher than in the global responses.

With this focus within the European region, it comes in good timing that the DCD Converged Europe event opened a new platform providing IT professionals an opportunity to learn newer methods for operational efficiency and effectiveness. Titled as StackingIT, this platform will give IT professionals a way to learn how to “create more intelligent and free-flowing IT infrastructure that takes the industry closer to the promise of software defined data centers.” The response to this platform from IT professionals will help bring further findings in relation to the global Transform to Better Perform initiative within the European region.

The details of the survey were discussed on November 18th at a CIO roundtable in London, held within the DCDConverged Europe event. BPI has already produced roundtables in San Francisco and Singapore to discuss regional impacts in the Americas and in the Asia-Pacific regions. A full report including the survey results, interviews and analysis is available free at ReinventDatacenters.com.

Another sign of European emphasis on efficiency came when the executives were asked how competitors are using new technologies to disrupt their markets. One in three European respondents said those technologies allowed their competitors to offer “more efficiency and better service.” That was 52 percent higher than their colleagues around the world.

"Implementation, migration, adoption, is different around the world…and it can be seen especially in emerging economies"
- Stephen Worn

The topic of efficiency also stood out in several other answers: two in five respondents said they’d rely on measures of operational uptime and business continuity as a metric to gauge the effectiveness of IT organizations – nearly twice the global level. And 43 percent said the most important way that technology was improving business was by “raising business process efficiency and effectiveness,” which was 26 percent above the worldwide response.

To be sure, the survey found the European executives were in near-perfect sync with their colleagues on other continents on several other important issues, including:

• 42 percent of each group said their IT organizations were doing “good” or “very well” in their mandate to transform and become a valued business partner.


• 40 percent of Europeans said their companies were embracing modern technologies “very well” or “exceptionally well” compared with 42 percent globally.


• 46 percent said business units were devoting more time to the strategic benefits of hybrid IT compared with 47 percent worldwide.


• Asked about plans for the corporate data center over the next five years, 46 percent of the European respondents said they would “modernize and upgrade” the facilities compared with 48 percent of the broader sampling

"We need some working assumptions about what the target operating model is...otherwise, you get into chicken-and-egg-style conversations"
- Clare Murray

The survey also suggested that European business leaders face bigger and different hurdles in upgrading technology than their peers in the Americas or APAC. More than seven in 10 (71%) said the top obstacle was gaining consensus and support for new technologies in their organizations compared to just 44 percent worldwide. And 32 percent said upgrading and modernizing aging IT infrastructure presents a challenge, compared to 28 percent globally.

The technology goals were also somewhat different. For example, 38 percent of the European executives said software defined networks would give them a competitive advantage in the marketplace, but less than half as many execs worldwide (17%) thought that was a priority.