IT strategies and business objectives not closely aligned

IT strategies and business objectives not closely aligned

A new survey has found that only three per cent of businesses feel that their IT strategies are fully aligned with the objectives of their businesses.

This is despite the fact that many agree that IT is an integral part of business success. This is according to a survey of chief information officers, carried out by research firm Vanson Bourne for BT Engage IT. The survey discovered that 35 per cent of CIOs said their board considered IT to be central to business successes, but only three per cent said their IT strategies, including their approach to networking, outsourcing and new technologies, reflected and were aligned to their wider strategies.

Some industries were better than others in terms of aligning their IT with their business objectives, with more than half of financial services CIOs believing these factors were either exactly or well aligned. While four per cent shocked surveyors by admitting they had not idea whether their IT strategies and wider objectives were aligned.

CIOs from other industries also generated some interesting results, with 28 per cent of transport, retail and distribution CIOs claiming that their boards appreciate how critical IT is to business success. However, only 20 per cent said that they had achieved alignment between their IT and business objectives.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a comparatively large percentage (16 per cent) of manufacturing CIOs said their business objectives and IT strategies were completely unrelated. However, what was less expected was that eight per cent said they considered their IT and objective to be exactly aligned, which is twice the average percentage of just 4 per cent.

The CEO of BT Engage IT, John Thornhill gave his reaction to the results: “It’s a shock to find that companies’ IT strategies aren’t fully aligned to business objectives in the majority of cases. That’s something that needs to be remedied or else businesses won’t be able to take full advantage of the latest technologies and risk being left behind.”

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