Cost Cutting Not CIOs' Main Focus
|
Here's another surprise from our new CIO role survey: The economy is slowing down. Gartner is telling CIOs 1) to prepare to make cuts, and 2) that IT enables other functions to reduce their costs. Reducing expenses has to be on the minds of nearly every CEO in the country. But CIOs still don't see reducing costs as a central part of their job. |
When asked to describe their role, just 44 percent say "cost cutter." It ranks 14th out of the 16 roles we asked about. And when asked to name their five most important job responsibilities, "helping the company manage or reduce costs" came up in 8th place out of 21 responsibilities. Still, only 25 percent of our 281 CIO-level respondents chose it. Even in a tough economy, CIOs do not consider lowering costs one of their main job responsibilities or roles.
But maybe I shouldn't be so surprised. We've seen this in earlier CIO role surveys -- most dramatically in our February 2003 survey, conducted at a time when the United States was just emerging from the post-dot-com slowdown. That year, we reported that just 17 percent of CIOs said managing costs was one of their primary roles. Yet 40 percent said they believed their bosses saw managing costs as one of their primary roles. And it didn't matter whether the CIO reported to the CEO, chief financial officer, chief operating officer or other executives.
I wrote then, "If CIOs claim to be so concerned about aligning IT with corporate goals, why the gap?" The reason, I believe, still pertains: "While cost management is a critical task, CIOs don't see it as the essence of their job." For analysis from our 2003 story on why that it is, click here.
