IBM Study Says CIOs Have a New Boss – Customer

With consumers engaging more directly with businesses through mobile and social media, more than 60 percent of CIOs will focus more heavily on improving the customer experience and getting closer to customers, according to a new report released by IBM (NYSE: IBM).

The report, entitled “Moving from the Back Office to the Front Lines – CIO Insights from the Global C-suite Study” is based on face-to-face conversations with more than 1,600 CIOs from 70 countries and 20 industries worldwide.

The research, conducted by IBM’s Institute for Business Value, reveals that customers drive CIOs to turn their focus to the front lines. The study findings were released today, March 13.

More than 80 percent of CIOs report they are shifting their focus to the front office where marketing, sales and service managers work directly with customers.

To do so, they are investing in new technologies to gain deeper insights into customer data. Examples of these items include sentiment mining and social network analysis to identify unique behavioral patterns and reliably predict critical trends.

Getting the basics right has become table stakes for CIOs looking to push their enterprise forward with new engagement and technology delivery platforms.

In fact, 66 percent of CIOs believe their IT departments have mastered the basics of technology within their firms. This investment in knowledge and skills is freeing up CIOs to look at new platforms that enable them to build a “Customer-Activated” enterprise.

As customer engagement becomes a critical driver for CIOs, cloud computing has soared in importance with 64 percent of CIOs naming it as part of their visionary plans compared to 30 percent in 2009.

Likewise, mobility solutions have also experienced a similar jump in importance with 84 percent saying it’s their top focus compared to 68 percent in 2009.

With these as a main driver, two-thirds of CIOs are now exploring how to better serve and collaborate with customers using cloud computing and social networking tools.

IBM conducted its in-person analysis with more than 4,000 C-suite leaders by using a global team of business strategists, consultants, data scientists and statisticians. More information about the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV) can be found here.