Indian CIO IT Budgets Outshine Global Counterparts

CIOs in India report that their IT budgets are expected to grow 12.8 percent in 2012, while CIOs globally expect flat growth, according to a global survey of CIOs by Gartner, Inc.’s Executive Programs. CIOs from India said their budgets are supporting business strategies concentrating on growth and innovation.

These results are part of worldwide CIO survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2011, and it included 2,335 CIOs, representing more than $321 billion in CIO IT budgets and covering 37 industries in 45 countries. The Gartner Executive Programs report, “Amplifying the Enterprise: The 2012 CIO Agenda” represents the world’s most comprehensive examination of business priorities and CIO strategies.

“Technology’s role in the enterprise is increasing. This does not mean, however, that the role of the IT organisation is increasing,” said Mark McDonald, group vice president for Gartner Executive Programs and Gartner Fellow. “CIOs concentrating on IT as a force of operational automation, integration and control are losing ground to executives who see technology as a business amplifier and source of innovation. Effective leaders use technology, which includes IT, to strengthen the customer experience and eliminate costly internal distortions. They are using technology to ‘amplify’ the enterprise.”

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Two Indian Companies, Tata Motors and Welspun, were featured as case studies in this year’s CIO agenda report. “Indian companies are facing unique challenges created by growth, as well as dynamic change,” said McDonald. “We are seeing IT-based innovation in India around the strategic use of IT and new models of IT operation and leadership.”

CIO’s increasingly see technologies such as analytics/business intelligence, mobility, cloud and social in combination rather than isolation to address business priorities. Changing the customer experience requires changing the way the company interacts externally rather than operates internally.

Analytics/business intelligence was the top-ranked technology for 2012 (see Table 1) globally and in India. CIOs are combining analytics with other technologies to create new capabilities. For example, analytics plus supply chain for process management and improvement, analytics plus mobility for field sales and operations, and analytics plus social for customer engagement and acquisition.

Globally, 61 percent of enterprises responding to the survey say they will be improving their mobile capability over the next three years. The majority have a mobility strategy that calls for becoming a market leader in their industry — so there will be significant competition as everyone seeks to be “above average” in its industry.

Meeting business expectations for increased growth, innovation and a transformed customer experience is part of the context for Indian companies IT budgets, as 70 percent of firms in the survey expect to increase their CIO IT budgets, with only 10 percent planning to reduce the IT budget.

“The 2012 Gartner CIO Agenda survey results show that CIOs believe that the customer experience is the greatest opportunity for IT-enabled innovation,” said McDonald. “As business executives see the potential of technology to transform customer channels and the customer experience, their view of technology has leapfrogged conventional ideas of IT.”

Technology is playing an increasing role in enterprise growth, innovation and operational performance while technology’s definition now incorporates new combinations of traditional IT systems, consumer devices and their respective services.

“Applying technology as part of amplifying the enterprise reflects both the changing nature of business strategies, and executive expectations about the role of technology in realising those strategies. Amplifying products, services and operations requires an enterprise to strengthen the customer experience and send clearer market signals,” McDonald said. “Mobility, social media, information and analytics can be used to re-imagine the customer experience, as well as sales and service channels. These technologies do more than automate or administer processes; they are the processes and the sources of value.”