CW500: CIO themes for 2012

PA's Tom McEwan, an IT strategy expert, spoke at a meeting of Computer Weekly’s 500 Club on the CIO themes for 2012. The meeting of over 80 IT leaders addressed the strategic, technical and skills challenges facing CIO’s in 2012.

Tom explains how companies that make decisions quickly tend to stick to them and prioritise their spending in order to survive the crisis. “The biggest thing we have realised [in our Managing Uncertainty survey] is that battening down the hatches in a crisis is not a strategy. The companies that did that performed worse.”

Tom explained the Managing Uncertainty survey carried out by PA Consulting which surveyed 200 senior business leaders on their response to the financial crisis. “We worked out that companies that made decisions quickly, stuck to them and then moved on, performed better in a crisis. The third element that distinguishes a successful company is the ability to cut costs in a strategic way, rather than reacting in a knee-jerk way. Looking at total shareholder return, those that saw the recession as an opportunity did 12% better.

“Fit for purpose is more important for our clients than anything else. I don’t see many bells and whistles on anything my clients are doing now. One lead, one penetration, can destroy your reputation overnight. And in the internetworked world, people will simply go somewhere else. Recent evidence is that one penetration can reduce your market capitalisation by 18 or 20 per cent.”

You can read the article in full here.

PA’s Managing Uncertainty survey asked more than 200 senior business leaders from across the world how they had responded to the financial crisis and what management strategies had proved most effective. Our analysis establishes which actions added value and which did not. Contact us now or find out more here.