Business
70 percent of Indian CIOs will report into CEOs by 2016
Indian CIOs, who do not report to CEOs, are expected to report directly to the them within the next year or two. This expectation is reflected in current hiring practices in India, according to Forrester study.
The majority of Indian CIOs don't report directly to the CEO, however this is expected to change dramatically over the next three years.
On June 14, Forrester VP India Manish Bahl wrote in a blog post that 60 percent of Indian CIOs still report to the financial or operations heads, as well as group CIOs or chief sales offices.
70 percent of Indian CIOs will report into CEOs by 2016.
After surveying 60 Indian CIOs, Bahl concluded the structure would reverse by 2016, with 70 percent of Indian CIOs or top IT managers reporting directly to the head of the company.
He said that most survey respondents, who aren't already reporting to the CEO, expect this to change within the next year or two.
"This expectation is reflected in current hiring practices in India, where the majority of CIO job openings on the market will report directly to CEOs," Bahl wrote in the blog post.
The report also found that CIOs not reporting directly to CEOs focused mainly on cutting IT costs and aligning IT to the business. Conversely, CIOs under direct oversight of CEOs are more likely to use technology to improve customer retention and business outcomes.
"As the boundary between IT and business further blurs, successful CEOs must get more directly involved in business-led technology discussions as a means to differentiate their organization and drive business growth," he said.
CIOs should develop an operations environment to better respond to business demands, and also renegotiate terms with system integrators.
Bahl said that less than 10 percent of Indian CIOs measure and report on the amount of IT being consumed by the business. This "showback approach" will help businesses transition to cloud and software-as-a-service applications.