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Streamlining IT Management - A survey
According to Infrastructure Strategies which is an Network Magazine - IMRB survey on IT spending for the year 2005-06 (the survey was conducted across India with 600 CIOs/ CTOs and Heads of IT Department), the CIO has moved from a function head to a strategic head.
However, little has been said about the dynamics that IT teams have been subjected to.
Quality matters : Teams may be shrinking, but hierarchy and levels of growth for IT staff seem rosier than they did some years ago. Today the presence of IT starts right from the top as CIOs are involved in board meetings and strategic decision-making. Almost 50 percent of the time, the CIO has the final say in IT decisions.
Unlike in the past where everyone was a systems analyst, and there was one project leader (now called CIO) who reported to the CFO, or some subsection of the business, today's IT teams have a definite hierarchy that starts with the CIO. Two or three senior members report to this person. A large part of the IT team can be classified as middle management. 43 percent of new employees who will be hired this fiscal will be for this slice of the IT team.
IT is important, but is it valuable? : Assigning ownership of IT projects to business function heads may be the formula for some successful deployments as the senior management of 44 percent of respondents believe that IT is a necessary expense.
52 percent of respondents see cost constraints as a weakness of the IT department. Nevertheless, many agree that some additional costs in the IT department are cleared on as need basis. Fortunately a fair number (30 percent) of respondents say that their senior management believes that IT investment is strategic.
Boon or bane : Ironically, the ready availability of people in this field is both a boon and a bane depending on how you view it.Training is a possible solution to that problem, but not everyone is open to learning.
Besides, the motivation of an IT team depends on the way that they are perceived and treated by the rest of the organisation. For that, users must also adapt to new technologies.
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