As a new year begins, I find it helpful to get a pulse on the Canadian IT Industry to get a feel for what’s important for our customers. Sentia helps CIOs plan for the future but more importantly, we help them address their concerns with effective solutions.
I came across this new report prepared by IT World Canada: Canadian CIO Census 2016 / Mapping out the Innovation Agenda. This report provides a valuable review of the CIO role in Canada along with top priorities and concerns. It also reveals that CIOs are more and more confident in their ability to sell ideas to C-suite decision-makers. Innovation is a prominent priority going forward.
What makes this report so valuable is that it’s based on a national survey of more than 187 Canadian IT leaders about business concerns and priorities, IT budgets and hiring plans. I thought these highlights would be of interest to you as you plan ahead.
Study highlights demonstrate how IT involvement in the business is increasing in the coming year.:
1. Three times more firms plan to increase rather than decrease IT headcount in the next 12 months
2. The top three priorities in the year ahead are:
• Security
• Disaster recovery
• Business Intelligence, Big Data, Analytics
3. IT professionals' most pressing daily concerns relate to running the business. Consistent with last year’s survey, participants rated data security and data privacy as their foremost concern
4. IT professionals rated improving customer service, retention and acquisition as the second best way to be seen as innovative by senior Line of Business (LOB)
Facing the Digital Transformation
Companies large and small now face the reality of Digital Transformation (DX) to remain competitive and relevant in the digital economy. Driven by the accelerated demand for more mobile computing, cloud services, big data, and data analytics, businesses need to have highly performing Data Security, Disaster Recovery, Virtualization, and Private Cloud solutions in place. The proportion of IT spend towards innovation will need to be planned and increased over time to fund business transformation initiatives.
IT Professional’s view of Outsourcing and Managed Services
IT professionals now view many benefits from using Outsourcing to help them manage their IT more efficiently while meeting their budget and resource requirements.
• Reduced time spent on maintaining infrastructure as the top benefit was named by 63% of survey participants
• Improved efficiency was cited by 50%
• Reduced costs by 44%
• A way to increase focus on the core business by 40%
• Provides a means to improve access and availability to data, increase security, enhance customer experience, and make gains in employee productivity
• Plans aren’t impacted by budget fluctuations as noted by most participants
• Outsourcing is expected to increase by a third of responders, while 59% expect it to remain the same
For the full Canadian CIO Census 2016 Report, click the image below:
I hope you enjoy reading the report and that it helps you position your company compared with other Canadian businesses that are facing the same issues. Sentia is geared to provide solutions and services to meet all these needs.
Have a successful and prosperous 2017!
Roger Osmond, President
Sentia Solutions