CHARLOTTE, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Society for Information Management (SIM), an association of more than 4,500 CIOs and other IT leaders, today released their 2016 IT Trends Study to the media. “The bottom line,” said Leon Kappelman, Ph.D., IT professor, and lead researcher of the Study, “is that senior IT leadership is focusing their attention and resources on being more pragmatic, holistic and business customer-focused. This is a very important and positive change, which bodes well for the whole economy.”
Now in its 36th year, SIM’s IT Trends Study takes the pulse of the IT industry by polling SIM members. This year’s study included complete responses from 1,218 members, from 785 organizations, with total revenues of nearly $5 trillion and $250 billion in 2015 IT spending. The study produces an unbiased report about the profession and the industry by closely examining important IT topics including priorities, budgets, salaries, skill needs, headcounts, performance measurement and how IT executives spend their time.
The study is released in advance of its availability to SIM members at SIMposium 2015, the IT executive-driven leadership conference held this year in Charlotte, North Carolina from Nov. 1-3, 2015. Since its inception, the study has examined the IT management issues that IT leaders consider most important to their organizations and, more recently, the most personally worrisome. “New entrants to the top-ten most worrisome IT issues are those that focus on making IT more responsive to the organization, while the four items no longer identified are things IT cannot really control,” said Kappelman. “New entrants include IT agility and IT credibility, replacing velocity of business and technology change. This signals a very realistic and pragmatic change and is likely to result in significant improvements to IT and its ability to enable the business.”
This year the study also examined the IT skills shortage, which has been a top concern of IT executives since the inception of the study nearly four decades ago. The examination of both technical and soft skills revealed a very high demand for architects, analysts, designers and others who are able to bridge the communication chasm between IT and the business, but in the context of the organization as a whole. “This is huge,” said Kappelman, “since it’s the key to not just getting aligned, but staying aligned.”
Also noted, CIOs are now spending double their time on business priorities, strategy and architecture (from 8.1% in 2014 to 16.2% in 2015). This is where CIOs spend most of their time, followed by forming IT strategy (11.9%) and IT operations (8.0%). Further, the most common measures of CIO performance are IT’s contribution to business strategy (35.5%); availability/up-time (34%); IT user/ customer satisfaction (31.9%), satisfaction of the customers of the business (30.3%); and value of IT to the business (29.6%).
To hear more about the study directly from Kappelman, media are encouraged to register for free admission to SIMposium 2015 by contacting Allison Menozzi. A full SIMposium schedule, including detailed information on each featured speaker, is listed on the SIMposium website. The theme of this year’s SIMposium event is “innovation” (the 4th most important IT management issue of organizations in 2015, an increase of eight since 2014). The combined business, technology and leadership conference will bring together highly influential CIOs and other senior IT executives to discuss, learn and engage with each other about business issues and best practices.
For more detailed information on the 2016 SIM IT Trends Study’s results, please visit SIM's website to request a copy.
About The Society for Information Management (SIM)
Established in 1968, the Society for Information Management (SIM) is the premier network of more than 4,500 CIOs, senior IT executives, prominent academicians, consultants, and other IT leaders. SIM is a community of thought leaders who share experiences and rich intellectual capital, and who explore future IT directions. Through its 36 chapters, SIM provides resources and programs inspired by IT leaders for IT leaders that enable them to further develop the leadership capabilities of themselves and future IT leaders. SIM provides the collective voice of the IT profession across all economic sectors to advocate policy and legislation.