Far fewer chief information officers are reporting to their chief executives, according to a survey.
Last year, 45% of those responding to a survey by the Society of Information Management said the CIO in their organization reported to their CEO. This year, that number is 31%.
"Why it dropped is perplexing," said Jerry Luftman, vice president of academic affairs at SIM, which counts CIOs and other senior IT professionals among its members. "I'mhoping it's just a blip."
More CIOs are reporting to the chief financial officeror the chief operating officer. Twenty-nine percent of respondents said the CIO reported to the CFO,compared with 25% last year, and 22% said theinformation chief reported to the COO, compared with16% last year.
Luftman said that the CEO isn't the only decisionmaker in a company and that CIOs can be just assuccessful when they report to other executives.
"The point is that it helps to have the CIO report tothe CEO, and I have found that [in] those organizationswhere the CIO does report to the CEO, their alignmentmaturity is clearly ahead of those where they do not,"said Luftman.
For the past few years, Luftman, who is also aprofessor at and executive director of the graduate program at the Stevens Institute of Technology, hasbeen measuring business and IT alignment using a number of metrics, including anorganization's communication, its IT governanceprocess, and the way the business understandstechnology and the technology department understandsthe business.
Each year, in addition to asking where in thereporting structure senior IT executives fit, SIM surveys itsmembers on their top challenges, technologyfocus areas, budget and staffing. This year, 140members participated. The group uses the results toset its event and education agendas.
SIM members said their biggest management challengewas attracting, developing and retaining staff, whichwas also the No. 1 concern last year. Companies,Luftman said, "are really hurting in being able tofill all the spots they have." There needs to be aconcerted effort on the part of all interested partiesto attract students to computer science programs, hesays.
Aligning IT and the business, which has been amajor challenge for CIOs for more than a decade, wasNo. 2 on this year's list--as it was last year.
Another surprise was how strongly human resource issues showed up in the survey.
Luftman noted that the top three concerns--staffing, business/IT alignment, and building up business skills--are all human resource and skills related and that those issues were cited by more than 40% ofrespondents.
In fact, human resource and skills issues popped upall over the list. Even the No. 10 concern--the evolving CIO leadership role--touched on the subject.IT leaders realize they need to change, and they needto develop even more business and industry specificskills, Luftman said.
Antivirus protection topped SIM's list of the top fiveapplication and technology issues, followed by business intelligence and networks.Business process management and continuity planningand disaster recovery were tied at No. 4.
CIOs are making antivirus a priority, Luftman said,because they're getting tired of having to deal with viruses and worms.
As for their IT budgets, only 22% of respondentsanticipate a cut in 2008--the same percentage thatexpected a budget cut going into 2007. However, only49% said their budgets would grow in 2008, comparedwith 61% who expected a budget increase coming intothis year.
The survey found that mostparticipants expect their companies to hire more ITstaffers. Fifty-two percent of respondents said theircompanies are planning to increase their IT headcountin 2008, compared with the 46% who expected to bulk up their staffs heading into this year.
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