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As 2009 comes to a close, a new survey from Salesforce.com suggests that UK CIOs face new challenges and mixed fortunes in the coming year.

At Salesforce.com's CloudForce2 conference in London, the Cloud apps vendor published the results of a major survey carried out by Coleman Parkes. The survey is currently in its second year, with around 100 CIOs, Heads of IT, and IT Managers, taking part, and unearthed interesting trends and challenges facing SMEs and enterprise companies alike.

Innovation continues to be an important facet for CIO to deliver, with around 96% of respondents stating it was at least ‘quite important’, and 75% revealing they’d like to introduce further innovative programmes. Whilst the promotion of inventive IT is core for CIOs and senior IT employees, the survey also shows two significant obstacles facing them: Time and money.

CIOs have clearly had to raise their levels of innovation to counter a greater emphasis on cost-cutting during the current testing climate. But two thirds (66%) said economic environment had forced budgets to be scaled back, compared with 41% in 2008. Comparing the results of the 2008 and 2009 surveys, the percentage of a CIO’s time spent managing IT overheads rose significantly from 51% to 64% year-on-year. The proportion of time spent delivering innovative strategic solutions fell year-on-year from 49% to 36%.

IT is seen as more valuable by the board, with an overwhelming 92% of respondents saying it carries greater sway now than it did 12 months ago. But this growing importance is not being reflected in the executive status of most CIOs. Just 14% currently sit on the board, and only half report into a board member. A mere 13% cent report into the CEO, while nearly a quarter (24%) report to the CFO and four per cent to the COO. On a more positive note, 96% of CIOs said they still get enough support from their CEO, up from 8% a year ago. Nearly three-quarters of survey respondents reported they held ‘a little more’ influence at the boardroom table compared to 2008, but worryingly for IT heads at small businesses, nearly one-fifth (17%) felt they actually held a little less influence.

“The key takeaway I think is the tension between the CIO’s desire to innovate and the pressure to keep the lights on,” said Andy Jacques, Salesforce.com. “CIOs are under pressure to delivering more with less, and delivering more, quicker,” continues Jacques. “This is where Cloud Computing comes in; it enables companies to deliver five times faster, for half the cost.”

Changing roles

Change is occurring for CIOs, albeit slowly amidst difficult conditions. Many have been forced to scale back IT spend is in 2009, though the forecast for innovation in 2010 is looking more promising.“It’s incredibly tough to be a CIO in this current climate, and there are only two choices: Either put innovation on the back-burner, or embrace it so when we come out of recession, the company is stronger than the competition,” commented Reed Exhibition’s Dominic Shine.

But he added: “Using technology as a Trojan Horse can change the way a company operate. The impact of increasing broadband penetration and wireless connectivity is improving the chances of delivering innovation, through mobile working. In turn, this is increasing the likelihood of Cloud adoption delivering the innovation craved by CIOs.

Similar thoughts were expressed by Jonathan Grant, CIO at NewVoiceMedia. “We had disparate silos of information, and even though we’re technology company there was resistance to Cloud Computing. We spent a lot of time and energy in training people about the benefits we’re trying to organise within the company," he said. ““Most Cloud applications extend what we’ve been able to do. We’ve already got rid of Goldmine, and we’re trying to get rid of Microsoft Office too. It’s a difficult metric to measure, but I would imagine we’d have six extra people working for me. With an average salary of £60,000, that’s nearly £400,000 a year I’m saving.”

Elsewhere Paul Cheesborough, CIO at Telegraph Media Group, said Cloud Computing has changed the way his organisation operates and the nature of his job. "We’ve embraced the Cloud to improve two things: agility and the enabling of new revenue streams," he noted. "We’ve embraced [Salesforce.com] and Google, and we’ve embraced the openness in the Salesforce.com APIs so our development teams can develop applications.

"Our future is digital, our past is in print publishing," he added. "We’ve enabled SalesCloud to deploy our digital streams, experiencing a six-fold growth in customers, which is underpinned by SalesCloud. SalesCloud powers sales, e-commerce revenues, and also our subscription businesses at Telegraph Media Group.

He concluded that Cloud Computing represents a way for CIOs to meet the innovation challenges imposed upon them by their organisations. "Innovation from companies like Salesforce.com is huge. There’s almost a four-day refresh from Salesforce.com, which is unheard from traditional on-premise vendors," he said, adding that firms should explore the Cloud. "The first step is don’t be afraid; it’s a much better place to be. However, the journey needs strong leadership and focus."