India Indicates Continued IT Growth: Gartner

Bangalore: India is constantly showing signs of IT growth separating Indian companies from peers in North America and Europe and 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’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 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 organization 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."

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 Mr. 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. 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.

The top 10 CIO Business and Technology priorities in 2012:

Business Priorities: 1) Increasing enterprise growth 2) Creating new products and services (innovation) 3) Attracting and retaining customers 4) Expanding into new markets or geographies 5) Increasing productivity 6) Reducing enterprise costs 7) Improving marketing and sales effectiveness 8) Managing and delivering operational results 9) Improving business processes 10) Improving efficiency

Technology priorities: 1) Analytics and Business Intelligence 2) Mobile technologies 3) Cloud computing (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS) 4) Collaboration technologies (e.g. Workflow management, team collaboration) 5) Social Media and Computing (social media suites, blogs, wiki, twitter, etc.) 6) Business Process Management tools 7) Customer relationship management applications (CRM) 8) Enterprise Resource applications (Finance, HR, etc.) 9) Document management 10) IT management technologies (Program, Project management, governance, change management)

Globally, 61 percent of enterprises responding to the survey say they will be improving their mobile capability over the next three years.