Business support, presence in all production processes, significant impact on company performance: the role of IT in organizations is increasingly important. Almost half of CIOs, or 46% according to an Abraxio study, describe themselves as a key partner, but 62% believe they are not always listened to by management.
The health crisis of 2020 showed the key role of IT departments and their teams in managing this unprecedented event, ensuring continuity of service and urgently deploying the conditions necessary for teleworking. Beyond Covid, issues have taken on greater importance such as the vulnerability of organizations to cyber risks, the pursuit of digital transformation, etc.
For the overwhelming majority of IT managers (78%), the position of the IT function in the organization has improved in recent years and 43% of them even say that it has improved significantly since 2020. On the IT budget side, before the crisis, they represented an average of 3.7% of turnover, including 10 to 15% for cyber security. The banking and finance sector leads the share of IT budgets in organizations, with public sector hospitals bringing up the rear. The largest part of the IT budget is dedicated to maintaining continuity of service.
The study by Abraxio, a marketing player in the IT department, is certainly a pro-House plea but it highlights some interesting elements. In short, according to this platform, many IT managers do not sufficiently “sell” their vital role in the organization. Thus, 57% of CIOs have not worked on their positioning even if they wish to do so, 68% of them have not studied their value proposition and only 20% of CIOs work from a communication plan. It is true that marketing does not come naturally to the IT function which lacks time for the priority tasks assigned to it.
Good communication between IT departments and their teams but much more limited beyond that
Highlight: 79% of IT departments communicate regularly or often with their teams and 39% with company employees but only 7.6% externally. Thus, nearly 4 in 10 CIOs (39%) are rarely on Twitter or Linkedin because, unsurprisingly, they don’t see the benefits.
The study also addresses an essential point, listening to employees and user comments from the IT department. In this area, annual satisfaction surveys represent more than half (52%) of the responses but direct surveys (34%) are rarely used.
” To gain influence, the challenge for IT departments is to move from the era of reporting to that of communication. » summarizes Samuel Revenu, CEO of Abraxio. Knowledge is essential, but raising awareness is also one of the missions of the IT department. In short, it is not enough to communicate figures and performance indicators (KPI), they must also be put into perspective and explained for the business lines and management.
For Abraxio, the explicit goal is not for IT departments to become communication experts but for companies to delegate marketing and communication to external service providers. In any case, there are limits to this type of action, which can prove harmful when not intended or done poorly.