IT/Business Alignment Still Top Concern

CEOs, CIOs, and top enterprise managers continue to cite IT/business alignment as the No.1 hurdle they face. That’s according to a survey commissioned by the Society for Information Management.

Rounding out the top 10 concerns in SIM’s annual survey, the list includes:

2) Building business skills in IT

3) IT strategic planning

4) Attracting new IT professionals

5) Making better use of information

6) Manage change

7) Reduce the cost of doing business

8) Improve IT quality

9) Retaining IT professionals

10) Security and privacy

Nearly three hundred responses were gathered from senior IT leaders within SIM’s membership base and the community at-large.

Last year’s No.1 concern—attracting, developing, and retaining IT professionals—was broken into separate questions for this year’s survey to determine whether attracting or retaining employees is of higher importance.

Antivirus protection ranks at the top when it comes to applications and technologies of importance to IT executives. It was followed by business intelligence, continuity planning/disaster recovery, business process management, and server virtualization.

The top concerns for IT executives are only a small part of the comprehensive SIM study. More results from the research including budgeting and staffing projections for 2009 will be unveiled during SIM’s annual conference, SIMposium, taking place November 9-12 in Orlando, FL.

The SIMposium conference, which is expected to attract more than 700 attendees from around the country, is designed to bring together IT leaders for formal and informal opportunities to discuss business issues and identify industry best practices.