Many C-suite execs have lost confidence in IT, including CIOs

Some bad news for CIOs: Many C-suite leaders, including IT leaders themselves, have less confidence in your department’s ability to get the job done than they did a decade ago.

Less than half of C-level executives believe their IT organizations are effectively delivering basic services, compared to about two-thirds with confidence in 2013, according to a survey recently released by the IBM Institute for Business Value.

The drop was the largest among the CEOs surveyed. In 2013, 64% had confidence in their organizations’ IT departments to deliver basic services, but the percentage fell to 36% this year.

Among the IT leaders surveyed, 69% had confidence in their departments a decade ago; now just 47% do. Confidence also fell among CFOs.

So what’s the deal? An IBM report based on the survey, “6 blind spots tech leaders must reveal,” describes the huge expectations that modern IT leaders face:

“For technology to deliver enterprise-wide business outcomes, tech leaders must be part mastermind, part maestro,” the report says. “They must architect technology strategy across data, security, operations, and infrastructure, teaming with business leaders — speaking their language, not tech jargon — to understand needs, imagine possibilities, identify risks, and coordinate investments.”

The report adds: “They must build multidisciplinary teams to bring the strategy to life, encouraging the experimentation and fresh ideas that inspire employees and delight customers.”

The job is rapidly changing

Some IT leaders see the problem as rising expectations combined with the rapid technological advancements in the past decade. Many veteran members of IT teams started as systems administrators or similar roles and are now being asked to set up complex cloud environments or figure out how to deploy AI, says Ashwin Rajeeva, co-founder and CTO at Acceldata, an enterprise data observability provider.

Many C-suite executives want the IT team to both keep the systems running and drive strategic innovation, he says, a challenging balance act.

“Organizations perceive IT as struggling to meet these demands, particularly in deploying new technologies like AI, which have raised expectations among business leaders,” he says. “Challenges in managing legacy systems and ongoing talent shortages further exacerbate this issue.”

In many cases, the traditional IT team has been separated from the R&D team, with the IT teams tasked with keeping the lights on, some tech leaders say. With IT and business strategies getting more intertwined, and the hard truths involved in that, the value traditionally driven by IT has shifted to product engineering and business units, says Martin Mao, CEO and co-founder of Chronosphere, a cloud observability platform.

“The value is not seen in keeping the wheels on the bus,” he says. “IT is stuck in a negative spiral of cost cutting and defense mode versus innovation. There is a huge talent drain occurring from IT to the product engineering side of the house.”

IT teams are often burdened with maintaining legacy systems while simultaneously asked to support new technologies such as AI, infrastructure as code, containerization, and cloud services, adds Kenny Van Alstyne, CTO at cloud vendor SoftIron.

In addition, the rise of shadow IT, with some departments with the organization going rogue, creates the perception that IT teams aren’t agile or innovative enough, he adds.

“This balancing act can create a perception that IT is slow or unresponsive to business needs,” he says. “Confidence in IT teams is falling largely due to a gap between the pace of technology change and IT’s ability to adapt quickly enough.”

Left on the sideline

The danger in this loss of confidence is that the IT department and CIO get left out of critical projects, says Acceldata’s Rajeeva.

“This disconnect may diminish investment in IT initiatives, as stakeholders question the effectiveness of technology spending,” he says. “Moreover, failing to leverage new technologies can stifle innovation and limit competitiveness. Ultimately, this lack of trust can create a culture resistant to change, slowing growth and impairing responsiveness to market demands.”

Without re-establishing their niche, IT teams at many organizations may slowly dwindle, adds Mao. Many organizations appear to already be shifting IT budgets to R&D, he says, even though he believes organizations still need healthy IT teams.

“If confidence in IT further declines, so does IT relevance and related investments,” he says. “It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy as IT is entrenched in cost efficiency and back-office tasks. If people don’t see you and your work as valuable, they won’t fund you.”

The good news is that there’s time to fix the problem. IT leaders have an opportunity to earn back relevance and trust, with interest in generative AI off the charts, Mao says, although many IT departments seem to be slow to take advantage.

Gen AI has huge potential for internal use cases, including help desk functions, HR processes, and information retrieval, with IT departments driving those projects, he says.

Internal AI projects also enable employees to test the technology and become comfortable with it before adding AI to products, Mao says. But, in many cases, this isn’t happening.

“IT is playing the traditional role of putting up guardrails around the use of AI, when instead, IT leaders could be at the forefront of using AI to drive internal innovation and greater credibility for IT,” he adds.

IT departments may not be able to reclaim territory lost to R&D and engineering teams, Mao adds, but they can find new areas, like AI, to add value.

CIOs can also focus on improving communication with business stakeholders, and other business-centric IT strategies, to ensure their teams are aligned with business goals, Rajeeva says.

Investing in talent and skills is also critical, he adds. “IT teams must not only upskill but also strategically recruit to stay ahead of emerging technologies,” he says. “By fostering closer collaboration with R&D and technology organizations, they can drive increased speed and quality, moving beyond outdated practices that no longer meet current demands.”

Van Alstyne agrees that CIOs and IT teams must show the ability to be agile and align with business needs. Like Rajeeva, he believes investments in talent and skills are important.

“IT must evolve from being a service provider to a true strategic partner,” he says. “IT leaders should get ahead of emerging technology trends, particularly in AI, cloud, and automation, and guide the business on how to use them responsibly.”