Square Off: IT Leaders Know Innovation Matters, They Just Can't Execute

Most IT leaders lay the foundations of their own demise in unimaginative, me-too decision-making, content with emulating the competition or making marginal improvements. Rather than create new opportunities, they focus on what others are doing. They insist on deploying only proven solutions with solid reference sites, thereby ensuring they'll never rise above their peers. And after two decades of quarterbacking huge IT projects that promised everything and delivered much less, CIOs are constrained by declining budgets because the growth funds are now being channeled directly to business-unit managers, who have a clearer sense of purpose.

Stephen PrenticeVP and chief of research, Gartner

In Gartner surveys, CEOs say their highest priorities are to improve business processes and implement projects that deliver business growth. Controlling costs and meeting service-level agreements are no longer enough. The future for successful IT leaders lies in creating capabilities that differentiate the enterprise in the market. That requires them to achieve real innovation, either by introducing new technologies or, more likely, by effectively exploiting established ones such as virtualization. The problem isn't that IT leaders don't get it--85% of the CIOs we've surveyed understand that innovation is important to enterprise success over the coming years--but that they don't know how to deliver results. Only 26% of CIOs consider their innovation processes sufficient to achieve their strategy. The rest appear to be waiting for a miracle that will likely never happen. Whether you believe the rate of innovation will continue to accelerate or begin to slow down, the ability to apply visionary thinking to everyday challenges of business is key to success. Incremental improvements can help control costs and boost productivity, but they'll rarely deliver the decisive blow needed to knock out the competition. The cultural and geographic diversity of an increasingly global marketplace is producing a breathtaking range of solutions for tackling current problems and seizing new opportunities. But we live in a world where much of IT is no longer viewed as technology, but simply as "stuff" we use every day to get our jobs done. Meanwhile, the centralized IT function, with its technology-biased conventional thinking and need to control instead of manage, is losing touch with the business. Whereas IT thinks in terms of systems and technology, the business thinks in terms of services. What business needs is agility. IT, however, wants stability, because change is too difficult. Unable to dismantle the legacy leviathan they've built to meet yesterday's challenges, technologists hide behind security, resource constraints, and regulations to maintain the status quo. The CIOs who succeed tend to see themselves as businesspeople first, technologists second. They think in terms of business objectives, not technical achievements. In their view, IT's purpose is to destroy barriers to business success, not add more bricks to the enterprise architecture. They've learned that saying no, however you justify it, means that the business or their competitors simply find a way to outmaneuver them. Such leaders readily turn to external service providers in appropriate cases and consider innovative ways of using consumer-grade technology suggested by their employees, or even their kids. Their power derives from what they enable, not what they control. With their sights set on business outcomes, these CIOs understand that while IT is critical, it's not a silver bullet. Rather, it's just the "stuff" we use every day. Read the contrasting opinion: Most CIOs Deliver Business Value, Even If Housekeeping Is A Bear