Logicalis US Shines Spotlight on CIOs' Greatest Pressures and Priorities
Solution Provider Examines Technology-Focused to Services-Led Shift among IT Organizations, Asks Top American Technology Professionals to Weigh In
NEW YORK, June 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- For the past three years, Logicalis, an international IT solutions and managed services provider (www.us.logicalis.com), has conducted a global survey of CIO pressures and priorities. The trends uncovered by these surveys have shined a spotlight on the way IT departments are transforming from backroom cost centers to services-led partners to their organizations' internal line-of-business (LOB) customers. The 2016 survey is now underway, and Logicalis is inviting all U.S. CIOs and other top IT professionals to take part: http://ow.ly/P3Dyg.
One of the most important trends uncovered in past Logicalis CIO surveys has been the growing threat from Shadow IT and the creative ways technology's top talent have found to overcome it.
The 2013 Logicalis survey, for example, revealed that 60 percent of CIO respondents believed LOB managers would gain more power over IT decision-making in the next three to five years. A year later, the 2014 survey – which polled top IT pros in 24 countries – proved this to be true: One in four CIOs said they had lost control of their organization's information technology spending and acknowledge that the balance of power in that IT spending had already shifted decisively toward line-of-business executives. Last year, the 2015 survey found the trend accelerating. Shadow IT, the survey showed, was a reality for 90 percent of CIOs, with almost one-third (31 percent) of CIOs globally saying they had been routinely side-lined when it came to making IT purchasing decisions.
The remedy, the survey indicated, was to transform IT departments from technology-focused to services- led organizations. To do that, IT needs to become a broker of technology services – and the first step toward this service-defined enterprise model, experts agree, is to embrace a software-defined data center in which hardware configuration is maintained through intelligent software systems, freeing IT to focus on working more closely with LOB customers to deliver technology services as quickly and easily as those corporate technology users can purchase the services they need elsewhere.
Tellingly, the 2015 survey found that CIOs were already working to free themselves from day-to-day, technology-focused operational tasks, with 38 percent spending at least half of their time on more strategic activities that would lead them toward the goal of becoming a more digitally enabled enterprise.
Have CIOs now fully embraced this transformation? To find out, Logicalis is conducting a new survey, and all U.S. CIOs and other top-level IT pros are invited to take part.
"Corporations have to become more digitally enabled if they want to remain relevant in their respective markets, and IT can be the catalyst that helps corporations transform to digitally enabled enterprises," says Vince DeLuca, CEO, Logicalis US. "The entire reason 'shadow IT' became a problem was because users had become accustomed to purchasing the services they needed to do their jobs in the same ways they had become accustomed to purchasing similar services in their consumer lives. We live in a right-now, on-demand world, and if IT can't deliver the services its users need when and how they need to access them, those users will bypass IT and find another way. For CIOs to remain relevant and to maintain control over their IT departments, they must be seen as a business partner, not a gatekeeper. IT can't be just a cost center within the organization anymore. In talking with our clients here in the U.S., we know that changes are taking place, and we invite all U.S. CIOs and other top-level IT professionals to take part in this global survey and make their greatest pressures and priorities known."
This year's global survey will be available online until August 1, 2016. The survey results will be available for download from the Logicalis web site at www.us.logicalis.com in Q3 2016.
Want to Learn More?
- View an infographic, read a press release synopsizing the results of the 2015 study, or download the complete 2015 survey results here: http://ow.ly/Ur5t301d3S7.
- Watch a brief video that explains CIOs' shift from "technology-defined" to "services-defined" thinking, as well as a WatchIT video featuring Logicalis US CEO Vince DeLuca exploring ways to enable the digital enterprise: http://ow.ly/gyTu301d5rR.
- Read a Logicalis white paper: "Why Every CEO Wants to Lead a Service-Defined Enterprise and Why the CIO Needs to Make It Happen": http://ow.ly/sHZN301d4EP.
About Logicalis
Logicalis is an international IT solutions and managed services provider with a breadth of knowledge and expertise in communications and collaboration; data center and cloud services; and managed services.
Logicalis employs over 4,000 people worldwide, including highly trained service specialists who design, deploy and manage complex IT infrastructures to meet the needs of over 6,500 corporate and public sector customers. To achieve this, Logicalis maintains strong partnerships with technology leaders such as Cisco, HP, IBM, EMC, NetApp, Microsoft, VMware and ServiceNow on an international basis. It has specialized solutions for enterprise and medium-sized companies in vertical markets covering financial services, TMT (telecommunications, media and technology), education, healthcare, retail, government, manufacturing and professional services, helping customers benefit from cutting-edge technologies in a cost-effective way.
The Logicalis Group has annualized revenues of over $1.5 billion from operations in Europe, North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific and is one of the leading IT and communications solution integrators specializing in the areas of advanced technologies and services.
The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec Limited, listed on the Johannesburg and London AIM Stock Exchanges, with revenues of over $6 billion.
For more information, visit www.us.logicalis.com.
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Media contacts:
Nickie Peters, Director of Marketing,
Logicalis US
[email protected]
920-338-7622
www.us.logicalis.com
Karen Franse, Communication Strategy Group for Logicalis US
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866-997-2424
www.gocsg.com
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