Is the Fire-Fighting IT Chief Becoming Extinct?

A new study found that IT bosses expect to spend 14 percent of their time on crisis management in three years’ time, a drop from 26 percent. But will they spend less time putting out fires due to good IT practices – or just because they’re outsourcing the job?

In an article on the CIO.com website, Martin Veitch says the survey by Coleman-Parkes Research, conducted on behalf of Avanade, asked IT managers how much time they intend to spend on crisis management.

The findings, Veitch says, might in part be explained by the fact that most respondents also expect to invest more in outsourcing over the next few years. “In some areas the increase in usage is expected to be marked: helpdesk is forecast to rise from affecting 33 percent today to 55 percent of respondents; collaboration to go from 27 to 47 percent; process definition from 19 to 36 percent; and customer management from 23 to 39 percent,” he says.

Another reason? Veitch says it could be broad expectations of devolved decision making on technology purchasing and strategy. “Only 13 percent of the IT spend justification will lie ‘nearly always with the IT function’ in thee years, compared to 23 percent three years ago,” he adds.

The survey also found that initiation of IT projects is also following the same route away from direct IT control and towards user departments.