What Slowdown?

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With the exception a few industries, CIOs are generally demonstrating a relatively confident approach to the underlying slowdown in the global economy. Part of the confidence is real: CIOs and their tech teams have largely not slowed down on a cost cutting mandate that began in the early 2000s. People have been doing “better, faster, cheaper” as a way of life, so why is this any different?

Our research shows this to be an understandable but short-sighted approach. This stance is informed by our unique vantage point of serving over 2,500 IT leaders from around the world – but also their CFOs, CMOs, CPOs, and heads of Sales, Strategy, HR, Customer Service, Operations, and Supply Chain.

While cost cutting may not be new, the magnitude of what is likely to be asked in the upcoming 9-12 months is different in kind from what has been seen to date. And the pressure from business partners to innovate and grow their own businesses will not go down in this slowdown. Now more than ever, the margin for error on delivery performance is low: in a recent survey of IT leaders we found drastically lower business-partner tolerance for lapses in delivery. And, the pressure to accelerate time to market has dramatically increased.

Thus the dilemma: our data show that only 1 in 10 CIOs can handle simultaneous “top priorities” of cost cutting and business enablement. While cost cutting has gone on in the background continuously, it has not been the top issue. The simultaneous ask is creating new to world pressure for most CIOs and their teams, whether they realize it or not. CIOs who cannot navigate this duality will be updating their resumes.

The good news is that our research shows that IT shops that achieved top performance in “lifecycle cost efficiency” and “business process digitization” were rewarded by investors for this all-round growth performance --- a 23% premium in shareholder value. Our research also shows that the behaviors that drive dual success are different in kind from what most CIOs possess. It requires a different level of game in communication, underlying understanding of the business they are in, time management, staff development, delegation – a different level of leadership.


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