Surveys Show Lack Of Faith In IT

Two surveys of top executives find that most don't believeinformation technology is delivering as much as it could.

IT is believed to make high contributions to businessresults by just 25% of the 650 CEOs and other seniorexecutives surveyed by the Department of Information Systemsat the London School of Economics at the request of CompassAmerica, a management consulting firm focused on improvingIT performance. Results of the survey, released yesterday,found that 32% of the respondents feel IT has metexpectations for improving business performance; 24% believeIT has done well in reducing costs; and only 19% think IThas done satisfactorily in delivering competitive advantage.Nevertheless, expectations for future IT performance arehigher than for past and current expectation levels.

In a survey of 429 CFOs by the Financial ExecutivesInstitute and Computer Sciences Corp., two-thirds of therespondents say that while they are spending more on ITtoday than three years ago, half of those respondents reportlow, negative, or unknown returns from their investments.The survey, released earlier this week, also debunked aperception that CIOs commonly report to CEOs. CIOs are twiceas likely to report to CFOs than CEOs, the survey found.