A study on top IT Management Concerns

According to the Wall Street Journal Business Technology Blog, the Society for Information Management has reportedly released a report on a study conducted with 300 IT Executives.  The results aren’t surprising but worth sharing.

I looked around the web and couldn’t find details on the research so I’ll have to assume that WSJ did their homework for their story 🙂 If anyone has a link to the SIM study, please share.

According to the WSJ post, the results are:

  • IT and business alignment – industry talk for making sure that the projects an IT department pursues match what a business needs – came in number one, a position its held in five of the last six annual surveys.

Some additional topics that were worth reporting:

  • IT departments may be through the worst of the economic downturn. Whereas last year reducing cost was the number-four priority, this year it’s dropped to number seven. Strategic planning climbed five spots – from eight to three – showing that tech execs are focused more on making do with what they have than making cuts.
  • One place tech execs may have already made cuts: their staffs. Last year, attracting new talent was tied for the number one concern. This year, it dropped to number four. Retaining workers was the other concern that shared the top spot and this year it’s dropped to number eight.

Looks like an interesting study.  WSJ interviewed Jerry Luftman, who conducted the survey, and got some excellent insight when he said:

In order to have anything resembling long-term alignment, the business has to be just as committed to keeping in tune with IT as IT is with the business

Wow…sounds like something I said recently in a post titled Information Technology Leadership and Alignment. 🙂