HONG KONG, 25 JUNE 2009—Compared to their Asian counterparts, 53 per cent of the CIOs in Hong Kong are focusing on increasing business profitability and performance through IT, said research firm IDC.
According to the current results of IDC's ongoing survey, Asia/Pacific Dynamic IT Benchmark 2009, Hong Kong CIOs have placed high priority on reviewing IT service and cost alignment with business, alongside optimising the existing IT infrastructure in view of existing economic crisis situations.
To date, the IDC survey has also yielded the following key findings about CIOs in Hong Kong:
• Hong Kong CIOs have put much focus on enhancing partner and customer communication in 2009.
• 30 per cent of the Hong Kong CIOs interviewed indicated that they will focus their corporate IT refresh strategy for 2009 on service-oriented architecture (SOA).
• More than 40 per cent of the Hong Kong CIOs interviewed have plans to move major applications to flexible on-demand Web services in an SOA environment.
• 63.6 per cent of the CIOs are preparing to outsource and only 21.2 per cent of the CIOs have disagreed to host their IT infrastructure and business data in a third-party environment, indicating that CIOs are opening up to newer IT business models like cloud computing, and software as a service.
“We are at an interesting juncture”, said Dr. Patrick Chan, chief technology advisor for IDC's Asia/Pacific Emerging Technology Council. “As a result of the financial downturn, corporations are under mounting pressures [sic] to invest only in IT that can help their businesses save costs and grow at the same time. As a result, CIOs today have very challenging roles to play. They need to balance savings against IT investments in order to achieve optimal growth for their organisations.”
Chan likens CIOs to catalysts, as the majority of them have been given the additional duties of aiding in the organisation’s drive toward further business growth and enhanced operational cost management. “It is imperative for CIOs to understand emerging trends in IT as well as the business directions so as to align their organisations on the right pathway to a better future,” he advised.
