FRAMINGHAM, MA--(Marketwired - Jan 14, 2016) - IDG Enterprise's CIO -- the executive-level IT media brand providing insight into business technology leadership -- reveals insights into the business goals and strategies that senior tech leaders are undertaking for the upcoming year in the 2016 State of the CIO Survey (click to tweet). Respondents are focusing their time on three different areas: strategy -- strategic initiatives, growth and innovation activities; transformation -- leading change efforts aligning IT initiatives with business goals, implementing new systems and architecture and cultivating the IT/business partnership; and function -- managing expenses, security and IT crises, and improving IT operations.
With a growing focus on enterprise digital transformation, business initiatives will shape technology budgets, with additional dollars being spent on improving the customer experience (44%), increasing operational efficiency (43%), and increasing cybersecurity protections (41%). As the focus on improving the customer experience increases, many technology leaders are getting first hand insight into what customers are looking for, as 63% of CIOs currently meet with external customers (and 54% of those are looking to increase that frequency in the coming year). Those meeting with external customers are often focused on business strategy initiatives (41%, compared to 19% that rarely/never meet with customers).
"As CIOs face increasing pressure to digitally transform their business, they must first understand what that, in fact, means," said Adam Dennison, SVP/Publisher of CIO. "Digital is not just about moving paper files to electronic ones, but rather seizing disruptive business opportunities made possible by cloud computing, mobility and big data."
As technology leaders transform the tech environment to meet business needs, one thing continues to stay top of mind, security. Twelve percent of the current tech budget is allocated for IT security and over the next three years CIOs anticipate more tightly integrated IT and security strategies. With the number of public cyberattacks it is no surprise that CEOs are requesting data security upgrades resulting in an increased budget allocation.
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About State of the CIO Survey
CIO's 2016 State of the CIO Survey was conducted among the CIO brand's audience. The 15th annual survey fielded online with the objective of understanding the current parameters of the CIO role and how it may be changing over time. To be considered qualified respondents must have identified themselves as the head of IT for their company or a division within it. Results are based on 571 qualified responses. The margin of error on a sample size of 571 is +/- 4.1 percentage points.
About CIO
CIO is the premier content and community resource for information technology executives and leaders thriving and prospering in this fast-paced era of IT transformation in the enterprise. The award-winning CIO portfolio -- CIO.com, CIO executive programs, CIO Strategic Marketing Services, CIO Forum on LinkedIn, CIO Executive Council and CIO primary research -- provides business technology leaders with analysis and insight on information technology trends and a keen understanding of IT's role in achieving business goals. Additionally, CIO provides opportunities for IT solution providers to reach this executive IT audience. The CIO Executive Council is a professional organization of CIOs created to serve as an unbiased and trusted peer advisory group. CIO is published by IDG Enterprise, a subsidiary of International Data Group (IDG), the world's leading media, events, and research company. Company information is available at http://www.idgenterprise.com/.
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