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News Release from: Economist Intelligence Unit
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 14 September 2006
Executives expect IT to deliver revenue
growth
Some 69% of senior IT and business executives surveyed worldwide maintain that, within three years, IT's primary role will shift from driving cost efficiency to enabling revenue growth.
In most organisations, cost-cutting has been virtually a raison d'etre for information technology Not for much longer: 69% of senior IT and business executives from around the world surveyed by the Economist Intelligence Unit maintain that, within three years, IT's primary role will shift from driving cost efficiency to enabling revenue growth
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 30 Mar 2006 at 8.00am (UK)
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This is more than posturing from technology managers.
The expectation of a revenue-generating role for IT is strongest among CEOs and board members, while IT executives themselves are slightly slower to adopt this new 'mindset'.
The strength of C-suite expectations suggests that the expansion of IT's role to encompass revenue generation is becoming a corporate mandate.
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Pressure on IT to help firms improve cost efficiency will not fall away, observes Robin Bew, editorial director of the Economist Intelligence Unit.
But in a tough global operating environment, senior management will increasingly seek competitive advantage for their firms from the more effective use of technology.
IT executives will need to respond to these pressures, while at the same time dealing with the manifold other challenges they face, including the migration of enterprise networks to IP, ensuring data security and meeting the demands of compliance.
These findings are published today in 'Great expectations: The changing role of IT in the business', a report written by the Economist Intelligence Unit and sponsored by Capgemini, Cisco Systems and SAP.
This is the first in a series of reports published under the umbrella of the Global Technology Forum, a research programme designed for senior executives who are responsible for managing and deploying information technology in the pursuit of business objectives.
* Other key findings of the report include the following.
An expectations gap exists between IT and the executive suite.
Most technology managers (62%) also believe that enabling revenue generation will come to be ITs primary mission within the next three years, but CEOs and board members (83%) are almost wholly convinced of it.
The gap yawns particularly wide in Asia-Pacific and Europe, where many IT managers retain a strong belief in the primacy of ITs cost-reduction role-partly due to continued C-level insistence on hitting cost-efficiency targets.
This gap will need to close-and C-level priorities to become more consistent- for better IT-business alignment to be achieved.
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