Business-process improvement -- streamlining corporate operations and making the company easier to do business with -- tops the CIO to-do list for 2006, according to new research from Stamford, Connecticut-based consulting firm Gartner Group.
The finding is especially notable in that business-process improvement ranked only 18th in Gartner's CIO priority list in 2004, before moving up to the number one position.
"The number one business priority this year, as in 2006, is business-process improvement," said Mark McDonald, group vice president and head of research for Gartner's Executive Programs.
Costs and Security
To create the report, Gartner carried out a worldwide survey of 1,400 CIOs on their I.T. priorities for 2006. The CIOs surveyed managed centralized I.T. organizations, employing an average of 300 I.T. professionals with an average I.T. budget of $71 million.
The CIOs represented $90 billion in I.T. spending altogether.
"The I.T. department has done a good job of bringing costs under control and installing core systems; now businesses expect to get future competitive advantage through improving business processes," McDonald said.
"I.T. security is still very important," McDonald pointed out. "Security is now part of the CIO's standard portfolio of responsibilities and has to be part of everything he or she does, from business processes to I.T. systems."
According to McDonald, security spending has continued to grow. "The business no longer has to pound on the table to demand I.T. security," he said. "It now expects the CIO to protect the enterprise  and is willing to fund this."
In aggregate, the survey results suggest that business expectations of I.T. have changed and executives now are expecting their CIOs to move beyond concerns about cost, security, and quality to help grow the business.
Business and Technology
The top four business priorities identified in the report are business-process improvement, controlling enterprise operating costs, attracting customers and growing customer relationships, and improving competitive advantage. Security breaches and disruptions occupy the number seven position in the top 10 business priorities.
The top four technology priorities for 2006 are business-intelligence applications, security technologies, mobile-workforce enablement, and collaboration technologies, according to the report.
The Gartner survey also found that worldwide I.T. budgets are expected to increase by an average of 2.7 percent in 2006. This compares to an increase of 2.5 percent in 2005 and represents a modest budget increase for the third consecutive year.
However, the I.T. budgets at companies planning to grow more quickly than the market are increasing by an average of 4.8 percent, Gartner said.
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