According to the Society for Information Management, businesses are climbing out of the economic slump, yet top IT executives are still worried about their abilities to positively impact organizational progress. While it looks as though the financial downturn is now turning up, it has created a significant shift in priorities for those in IT.
Since 2010, budgets and salaries have increased, which is undoubtedly beneficial for CIOs and their teams. But forecasts of growth also mean more worries for IT leaders.
As reported by ZDNet, here is an overview of the top ten CIO concerns:
- Business productivity and cost reduction
- Business agility and speed to market
- IT and business alignment
- IT reliability and efficiency
- Business process re-engineering
- IT strategic planning
- Revenue generating IT innovations
- IT cost reduction
- Security and privacy
- Globalization
Almost all of these apprehensions focus on business-related issues such as productivity and cost reduction, IT and business alignment, IT reliability and efficiency, and strategic planning.
With needs identified, the question becomes: How can CIOs deliver on these goals?
Work management software has a variety of components that can provide insight into these areas of the IT department, as well as the tools for CIOs and IT managers to turn the data into actionable processes that will positively impact the business. Following are a few examples.
With a combination of time tracking, ticketing and project management features, you can gain detailed insight into your employees’ workflow, see how individual team members are performing and put a plan into action to quickly to improve productivity and efficiency.
In addition to reviewing high-level performance, you can make sure that employees are focusing on the type of work they should be (e.g., high-level projects with senior staff, and ticket troubleshooting with entry-level team members), which will inevitably reduce soft costs.
Use Gantt charts, due dates, and employee status updates to organize and prioritize projects to keep them from falling through the cracks. By aligning IT department goals with organizational ones, and making sure employees have a clear understanding of your expectations, you will ensure that strategic and business-focused projects will stay top priority, not to be trumped by tickets or short-term needs.
Most software systems enable you to run daily, weekly or monthly reports on timesheets, tickets, projects, and costs. Use this information to facilitate high-level discussions with fellow business leaders and C-level executives, so you can better align IT projects with organizational goals, determine areas to improve processes and focus on the big picture.
Managing a distributed/mobile workforce
One of the new additions to the list of CIO concerns was globalization; this is not a big surprise as companies are continuing to expand and become more mobile. For IT departments with outsourced assistance, mobile employees or multiple offices, work management software can be a valuable solution to keep track of all tasks, projects, and staff, even in a distributed workforce.
In short, improved administration and organization of your IT department can directly impact some of the industry’s top concerns. What are your goals for improving business impact this year? How are you meeting them? See how you can meet the CIO’s goals with a demonstration of TeamHeadquarters.
