News Release-- June 26, 2003

CIO: A ROLE SUBJECT TO RADICAL CHANGE

A look back at fifteen years of the "Critical Issues Survey” carried out by CSC

Brussels, May 2003 - Since 1988, the role of the CIO has changed a great deal. The job has become more demanding, and more closely tied to the strategy of the company. In 1988, Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC) carried out its first study on Chief Information Officers to determine the critical issues that they were encountering. For the last 15 years, the Critical Issues Survey has been tracking the strategic and technical issues facing companies worldwide in order to adapt to information technologies. The time has come to look back over these fifteen years of major upheavals, paying particular attention to Europe.

Top 5 issues, past and present

In 1988, European and North American CIOs put the same five issues at the top of their lists:

• Develop an IT plan
  
• Align IT and corporate goals
  
• Educate management on IT
  
• Use IT for competitive advantage
  
• Develop an IT architecture
  
  

Nowadays, the majority of these issues have declined in importance. On the other hand, some of today’s essential issues – such as optimizing enterprise-wide IT services or connecting with customers and partners electronically – had not yet made an appearance in 1988.

In 2001, the top 5 rated by European CIOs looked as follows:

• Optimize enterprise-wide IT services
  
• Optimize organizational effectiveness
  
• Update obsolete systems
  
• Communicate electronically with customers
  
• Organize and use data
  
  

In 2001, "develop an IT plan" did not even appear any more in the rankings. On the other hand, the four other issues of 1988 still appear in the CIOs’ top 20, without being in the top 5. We can see two emerging optimization concerns, which are the result of e-business. The desire to communicate electronically with customers appeared in the mid-90’s, when the Internet was establishing itself as the emergent technology for business.

At the end of the 90’s, organizations became aware that IT must be deployed enterprise-wide to be able to coordinate disparate units in a flexible way. Speed of action is also becoming a crucial factor. Companies are using IT to convert their traditional structures and organizational processes and make them more effective. It is this concern for effectiveness that has led CIOs to rank organization and use of data in their top 5 critical issues for almost all of the last 15 years.

Outsourcing

It was only in 1991 that the majority of respondents, both in Europe and North America ceased to be opposed to outsourcing. In 1995, two-thirds of them were already using outsourcing or seriously considering it, one-third of respondents even stated that outsourcing was part of their company’s strategy.
Cost-cutting and improving service have always been the driving forces for those who choose outsourcing, whether it be for tactical or strategic business strategies. In 2001, competitive advantage and concentrating on the core business joined the first two reasons.

Information security

In 1988, Europeans put information security in 18th position. It was only in 2001 (before 11 September) that the subject appeared in the top 10 in all regions of the world. Despite the growing importance of this issue, 46% of respondents did not think it useful to set up an information security policy, while the majority of those who have a policy on this issue focus it on external threats, rather than on the internal threats which are nevertheless very real.

Emerging technologies

Emerging technologies have changed a lot. In 1991, PCs, CASE (Common Application Service Elements), LAN and client-server technologies formed part of the top 10. Internet only appeared at the lower end of the top 20 in 1995, to rocket to first position the next year. In four years, Internet changed from being a technology to being the environment in which technology is used. In 2000, the emergent technologies in the top 5 were ubiquitous bandwidth, knowledge management, information security and survivability.

To access a more extensive article about this subject, click here .

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About CSC
Founded in 1959, Computer Sciences Corporation is one of the world's leading information technology (IT) services companies. CSC’s mission is to provide customers in industry and government with solutions crafted to meet their specific challenges and enable them to profit from the advanced use of technology.
With approximately 90 000 employees, CSC provides innovative solutions for customers around the world by applying leading technologies and CSC’s own advanced capabilities. These include systems design and integration; IT and business process outsourcing; applications software development; web and application hosting; and management consulting. Headquartered in El Segundo, California, CSC reported revenue of 11.3 billion USD for the 12 months ended December 27, 2002.
For more information, visit the company's web site at http://www.csc.com - Telephone in Belgium: +32 2 714 7111.

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