European CIOs Embrace IT Governance; Research by Niku Reveals IT Management and Governance Improvement a Key Priority for 2005

Business Wire, Feb 15, 2005

LONDON -- Six out of ten European blue-chip businesses will have deployed an IT Management and Governance (IT-MG) system within 24 months.

This is the headline finding of a survey which questioned 114 CIOs and senior IT executives about their key IT challenges, priorities and governance requirements.

The research was conducted by Niku's direct survey of multi-national blue-chips and market leaders across a range of public and private sector industries including aerospace, manufacturing, insurance, retail banking, logistics, retail, telecom, media and pharmaceutical. Each participant, on average, had responsibility for 800 in-house and outsourced IT staff. Niku is a leading IT-MG solutions vendor and undertook the survey as part of its ongoing programme of end-user research.

The research found that:

    --  31% of European blue-chip businesses are planning to roll out
        an IT Governance system in the next 12-24 months; 18% are in
        the process of rolling out a system; 9.6% have a system in
        place.

    --  The three biggest IT management challenges faced by
        respondents are:

        --  Measuring and evidencing the Return on IT spend (41% of
            respondents);
        --  Managing IT resources and measuring performance (45%);
        --  Aligning and prioritising IT projects according to
            business needs (41%).

    --  The highest IT priorities for 2005 are:

        --  Implementing IT portfolio management (71% of respondents
            rated it as a high priority);
        --  Business Process Re-engineering (54%);
        --  Marketing the value of IT (52%).

The research also revealed that 64% of those surveyed currently use spreadsheets or MS Project to manage their portfolio of IT projects, programmes and initiatives. According to the survey, such lack of sophisticated forecasting and modelling tools has a negative impact on decision-making, with 37% of CIOs deciding which IT projects to stream out and which to nurture based purely on available budget.

When asked what IT governance should achieve, the overwhelming
    response was:

        --  Enable comprehensive portfolio management - planning,
            budgeting and performance assessment (64% of respondents);
        --  Enable project and programme management - time, status,
            resource allocation, costing (65%).

"IT Management and Governance has gained clear traction with European businesses and governmental agencies," commented Colin Pittham, Vice-President EMEA at Niku. "Senior executives understand the importance of running the IT function as a business to ensure that as much value as possible is gained from IT spend. CIOs also realise the need to use business language to gain executive sponsorship of IT projects."

About Niku

Niku Corporation (NASDAQ:NIKU) is the global leader in IT Management and Governance (IT-MG) solutions and two time winner of the Gartner PPM Summit "Best Vendor" Award. More than 400,000 users at industry leaders such as 3M, BT, Emerson, John Lewis, Pfizer, Unilever and Visa International depend on Niku software to manage mission-critical projects, programmes, and initiatives and maximize their "Return on IT". Niku's European headquarters are located in St. Albans, United Kingdom.

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