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Recent findings from the Cisco IBSG Horizons Study of 600 U.S. IT and business leaders that shows IT is accepting, and in some cases embracing, "bring your own device" (BYOD) in the enterprise. 

The study shows some of the quantifiable benefits and complexities associated with allowing employees to use their own mobile devices on their employers' networks.

The results show most organizations are now enabling BYOD in the enterprise, with 95% of respondents saying their organizations permit employee-owned devices in some way, shape or form in the workplace. 

This study also concluded that the average number of connected devices per knowledge worker is expected to reach 3.3 by 2014. This is up from an average of 2.8 in 2012. 

The mobility numbers are staggering and depict the increasingly global consumerization of IT  trend in most organizations. By April 1, the population of the world will reach approximately 7 billion. According to research from mobiThinking, as of January 2012, the number of cellular subscriptions worldwide was approximately 6 billion. The number of cellular mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide was approximately 1.2 billion.

IT managers are balancing security and support concerns with the very real potential to reap significant cost and productivity benefits from the BYOD trend. The survey also reveals that BYOD is just the gateway to greater business benefits. 

Over three-fourths (76%) of IT leaders surveyed categorized BYOD as somewhat or extremely positive for their companies, while seeing significant challenges for IT. These findings reinforce that BYOD is no passing fad and is here to stay.

 Many it managers are acknowledging the need for a more holistic approach to managing BYOD. This includes one that is scalable and addresses mobility, security, virtualization and network policy management, in order to keep management costs in line while simultaneously providing optimal experiences where savings can be realized.

These research findings support Cisco's assertion that mobility needs to extend well beyond BYOD to include the integration of service provider mobility, enterprise mobility, security, collaboration and desktop virtualization solutions.

Several Key Survey Findings

95% of organizations allow employee-owned devices in some way, shape or form in the workplace.

84% of respondents not only allow employee-owned devices, but also provide some level of support.

36% of surveyed enterprises provide full support for employee-owned devices. 

78% of U.S. white-collar employees use a mobile device for work purposes.

65% of white-collar workers require mobile connectivity to do their jobs.

Mobility On the Rise

On average, mobility initiatives will consume 20% of IT budgets in 2014, compared to 17% in 2012.

Most IT leaders (76%) consider consumerization "somewhat" or "extremely" positive for their companies.

Among respondents, the top two perceived benefits of BYOD were improved employee productivity (more opportunities to collaborate) and greater job satisfaction.

Employees want to work their way:

 Employees are turning to BYOD because they want more control of their work experience:40% of respondents cited "device choice" as employees' top BYOD priority (the ability to use their favorite device anywhere).

Employees' second BYOD priority is the desire to perform personal activities at work, and work activities during personal time.

Employees also want to bring their own applications to work: 69% of respondents said that unapproved applications -- especially social networks, cloud-based email, and instant messaging -- are somewhat to much more prevalent today than two years ago.

Employees are willing to invest to improve their work experience. According to Cisco IBSG, Cisco employees pay an average of $600 out-of-pocket for devices that will give them more control over their work experience.

Benefits of BYOD add up: The benefits of BYOD vary based on an employee's role and work requirements. Cisco IBSG estimates that the annual benefits from BYOD range from $300 to $1,300 per employee, depending on the employee's job role.

BYOD Does Bring Complexity: Security and IT Support

Respondents cited security/privacy and IT support for multiple mobile platforms as the top challenges of BYOD.

According to the report only 14% of BYOD costs are hardware-related, highlighting the importance of choosing the right governance and support models to control these costs.

Data protection continues to be the number one concern among IT managers. Ensuring that only the right people have access to sensitive company and customer data is and should remain a top priority.

The growth curve of popular consumer devices such as smart phones and tablets is a steep one. The “bring your own device to work” evolution is clearly underway and is increasingly greeted with open arms by corporate IT departments and business leaders. The consumer technology focus is shifting towards collaboration tools that also enable better business communications. This trend is clearly seen in many organizations as both back and front office applications are more efficiently accessed by the mobile worker from their tablets and smartphones regardless of when and where they choose to work.

Essential business communications are facilitated by companies and workers that are consuming newer and more advanced mobile technologies throughout the organization. The workers are empowered by their devices and the apps they are acquiring and using in newer and more sophisticated ways. The proliferation of mobile devices has caused a growing demand on organizations to secure the applications that run on them. CIOs should consider the latent demand for secure mobile access a typical growing pain for a thriving and competitive organization.

A recent CDW survey supports this notion as the adoption of smartphones and tablets in the workplace is driving down costs and improving worker productivity. According to the latest CDW IT Monitor, almost 75% of the IT decision-makers surveyed believe that the use of tablets and smartphones has led to an increase in productivity within their organization. The remaining 25% believe their use improves productivity significantly. 

50% of all IT decision-makers believe that the use of tablets and smartphones has led to cost savings in their organization and among large businesses, 64% of IT managers reported that consumer technology adoption has led to cost savings.

Use of tablets and smartphones in the workplace continues to gain traction, according to the report. Although larger enterprises are most likely to adopt these technologies (62 percent), nearly one half of small businesses reported tablet use (47 %), and among those not currently using tablets, 31% said they had concrete plans to do so in the next six months.

IT managers are constantly challenged with the need to resolve device security issues to prevent significant data loss and breaches. In addition, their mounting support concerns ring hollow with the very real potential to reap significant cost and productivity benefits from the BYOD trend. CIOs realize that BYOD is an important gateway to greater business communications.  Not embracing BYOD is not really an option. On a positive note, IT security specialists now have a more consolidated field of disparate device operating systems to support. The most popular operating systems selected by IT decision-makers are Apple iOS operating system (61%), Google's open source Android operating system (24%), and Research in Motion's Blackberry Tablet OS (9%). 

Just how are smarphones and tablets fostering better business communications in the organization? The most common use for tablets was for sales or sales representatives (48%), replacing printed materials (36%) and workgroup collaboration (32%).

"Tablet computer data uncovered in the latest IT Monitor proves that tablets and other consumer technologies certainly have their place in the work environment," Neal Campbell, SVP and CMO for CDW said. "As more organizations allow tablet computers and smartphones in the workplace, it will be important for IT decision-makers to ensure the technology can truly improve productivity, be integrated into their IT infrastructure, and be protected through IT security solutions."

Is your organization embracing BYOD to facilitate better business communications among working groups in your company?

Establishing reliable communication channels throughout an organization is a necessary mandate for effective collaboration across working groups, committees, departments, and business units. CIOs today strive to deliver the proper collaboration tools to support these initiatives.

According to recent research by Aberdeen Research,  as of 9/2011 approximately 60% of the C-Suite at fortune 1000 companies actively use video collaboration tools between members of the C-Suite to coordinate the management of their departments in the organization.

Because of the globalization of corporations, business executives are required to work more virtually than ever before. In spite of this fact these executives continue to highly regard the value of face-to-face meetings and interactions.

These findings were highlighted recently according to Cisco's London-based Economist Intelligence Unit in a new survey showing that business leaders, despite their global distribution, want more collaboration in person.

This was especially true when it comes to activities such as brainstorming for new ideas, managing a specific crisis or making presentations to internal staff or external partners or customers.

The survey is titled "Business Leaders' Views on Interaction. Approximately 860 global senior executives were asked to describe their preferred communications with colleagues, suppliers/partners and customers. 

The survey results demonstrated that 89% say communications where the parties can see and respond to each other benefit internal business functions such as employee coaching and training, as well as communications with partners and customers. 

Other key highlights from the survey found:

• 75 % believe in-person collaboration is critical;

• 54 % agree that gauging engagement and focus is critical to communicating; and

• 82 % felt they were better understood after in-person encounters.

Top Motivations for In-Person Meetings

The No. 1 reason to have a face-to-face meeting is to resolve major problems more efficiently. That is followed by generating long-term relationships and resolving a problem or creating an opportunity quickly.

• Effective Communications: Executives cited engagement and focus on shared content (92%), tone of voice (81%), facial expressions (81%), words someone is using (72%), subconscious body language (72%) and conscious movements or gestures (67%) as being key to successful communications. According to the survey results, four out of these six cannot be achieved without face-to-face interaction.

• Business Processes: Business leaders responded that in-person collaboration is key for more than 50% of key strategic and tactical business processes. This includes events such as  project kick-offs, initial meetings, brainstorming sessions, managing problems with groups, crisis management and coaching team members. All of these events were identified as having a "high need" for in-person collaboration. Also cited as needing face-to-face interaction were contract renewals, strategic planning, meeting new clients, co-development of project plans and contract agreements or expansions.

• Technology: While 60% of modern communications are non-real-time, 73% of business leaders believe in-person is the most impactful communication. Additionally, a majority of executives say in-person has a higher impact than email, phone or web conference when it comes to interacting with customers (79%), colleagues (72%) and partners/suppliers (66%).

• Telepresence: When in-person meetings aren't feasible, videoconferencing may be a good substitute, as many executives strongly agree that video enables richer and more productive relationships (53%), saves time (45%) and saves money (35%).

Establishing reliable communication channels throughout an organization is a necessary mandate for effective collaboration across working groups, committees, departments, and business units. CIOs today strive to deliver the proper collaboration tools to support these initiatives.

According to recent research by Aberdeen Research,  as of 9/2011 approximately 60% of the C-Suite at fortune 1000 companies actively use video collaboration tools between members of the C-Suite to coordinate the management of their departments in the organization.

Because of the globalization of corporations, business executives are required to work more virtually than ever before. In spite of this fact these executives continue to highly regard the value of face-to-face meetings and interactions.

These findings were highlighted recently according to Cisco's London-based Economist Intelligence Unit in a new survey showing that business leaders, despite their global distribution, want more collaboration in person.

This was especially true when it comes to activities such as brainstorming for new ideas, managing a specific crisis or making presentations to internal staff or external partners or customers.

The survey is titled "Business Leaders' Views on Interaction. Approximately 860 global senior executives were asked to describe their preferred communications with colleagues, suppliers/partners and customers. 

The survey results demonstrated that 89% say communications where the parties can see and respond to each other benefit internal business functions such as employee coaching and training, as well as communications with partners and customers. 

Other key highlights from the survey found:

• 75 % believe in-person collaboration is critical;

• 54 % agree that gauging engagement and focus is critical to communicating; and

• 82 % felt they were better understood after in-person encounters.

Top Motivations for In-Person Meetings

The No. 1 reason to have a face-to-face meeting is to resolve major problems more efficiently. That is followed by generating long-term relationships and resolving a problem or creating an opportunity quickly.

• Effective Communications: Executives cited engagement and focus on shared content (92%), tone of voice (81%), facial expressions (81%), words someone is using (72%), subconscious body language (72%) and conscious movements or gestures (67%) as being key to successful communications. According to the survey results, four out of these six cannot be achieved without face-to-face interaction.

• Business Processes: Business leaders responded that in-person collaboration is key for more than 50% of key strategic and tactical business processes. This includes events such as  project kick-offs, initial meetings, brainstorming sessions, managing problems with groups, crisis management and coaching team members. All of these events were identified as having a "high need" for in-person collaboration. Also cited as needing face-to-face interaction were contract renewals, strategic planning, meeting new clients, co-development of project plans and contract agreements or expansions.

• Technology: While 60% of modern communications are non-real-time, 73% of business leaders believe in-person is the most impactful communication. Additionally, a majority of executives say in-person has a higher impact than email, phone or web conference when it comes to interacting with customers (79%), colleagues (72%) and partners/suppliers (66%).

• Telepresence: When in-person meetings aren't feasible, videoconferencing may be a good substitute, as many executives strongly agree that video enables richer and more productive relationships (53%), saves time (45%) and saves money (35%).

CFOs today are focused on payback when making investments in IT. The current global economy is making it difficult for many companies to compete and win market share in their industry so investment in technology that leads to innovation and collaboration is more important than ever.

Cloud, big data, analytics, social media and other disruptive technologies can offer huge opportunities for CFOs and CIOs to help their organizations collaborate to work better, smarter and faster. The CFO though in many cases is not so quick to pull the trigger. CFOs feel the need to first consider some of the challenges in cost justification of an IT investment.

The biggest problem faced today by many CFOs and CIOs is that many corporate boards will not even consider the funding of a large project unless the return on investment is well defined and has real positive payback period. What is the proper ROI on a large project that will cause the CFO to make a strategic investment? 

According to Paul Nastro, CFO of Network Adjusters, the return from the investment should significantly outweigh the cost outlay by about 5:1 or greater over a three year period. This ROI expectation seems reasonable given the current low cost of financing large internal projects.

In a recent survey, Forrester Research discovered that the CFO continues to actively participate in technology acquisition, largely because companies are implementing new systems only if they feel confident that they will recover the investment in a relatively short period of time. 

Some technology vendors in trying to rapidly close on a large technology sale have been very helpful to CFOs with the calculation of the ROI for a specific investment. These vendors now offer content calculators and assets such as "Top 10" lists of ways in which their products pay off as well as independent seals of approval from various consulting groups. Some of those sales efforts are often useful to the CFO but more often they are just a small part of the cost justification and ROI calculation process.

The role of CFO as a cost cutter and the primary IT decision maker for larger technology acquisitions dates back to about a decade ago. At many organizations the critical systems and applications preparations for the events surrounding Y2K and mandatory compliance issues produced a big rush to move into E-business initiatives. This had the effect on the CFO of forcing them to forgo the typical ROI analysis trend for a while.

Today, the CFO has once again brought the diligence to the C-Suite as the one whose analytical financial skills and focus on the cost of systems implementation not only augment decisions, but determine them. According to Paul Nastro, “Organizations will invest in technology in pursuit of revenue growth, but they are closely watching expense items that can potentially impact the bottom line savings achieved as a result of technology implementation.”

Not only CFOs are guided in the IT purchase and decision making process by the ROI but most CIOs value ROI as well. Recently a joint survey by Gartner and the Financial Executives Research Foundation found that 42% of the IT organizations top person - the CIO, reports directly to the CFO. The percentage increases to 60% at smaller businesses - those defined as companies with revenues between $50 and $250 million.

In addition, the survey pointed out that CFOs approve 26% of all IT investments, while CIOs approve a mere 5%. This is most likely due to the current state of the global economy as in recessionary markets the CFO must keep a close eye on all expenditures.

Some in the C-Suite believe that this renewed focus on ROI will bolster the CFO-CIO relationship. What is certain though is that a tighter rein on IT spending has triggered more communication between CFOs and CEOs.

Given the current CFO-CIO relationship and constrained IT spending, everything is under close scrutiny by both the CFO and the CIO. It will be interesting to see how the reporting dynamics shift over the next few years as cloud computing adoption really entrenches itself in most organizations and the ROI become more apparent.  As the current economy continues to improve and companies invest more in growth-oriented projects, this should give CFO and CIOs an opportunity to collaborate effectively on all ROI decisions.

CFOs today are focused on payback when making investments in IT. The current global economy is making it difficult for many companies to compete and win market share in their industry so investment in technology that leads to innovation and collaboration is more important than ever.

Cloud, big data, analytics, social media and other disruptive technologies can offer huge opportunities for CFOs and CIOs to help their organizations collaborate to work better, smarter and faster. The CFO though in many cases is not so quick to pull the trigger. CFOs feel the need to first consider some of the challenges in cost justification of an IT investment.

The biggest problem faced today by many CFOs and CIOs is that many companies will not even entertain an offer for a large project unless the return on investment is well defined and has real positive payback period. What is the proper ROI on a large project that will cause the CFO to make a strategic investment? 

According to Paul Nastro, CFO of Network Adjusters, the return from the investment should significantly outweigh the cost outlay by about 5:1 or greater over a three year period. This ROI expectation seems reasonable given the current low cost of financing large internal projects.

In a recent survey, Forrester Research discovered that the CFO continues to actively participate in technology acquisition, largely because companies are implementing new systems only if they feel confident that they will recover the investment in a relatively short period of time. 

Some technology vendors in trying to rapidly close on a large technology sale have been very helpful to CFOs with the calculation of the ROI for a specific investment. These vendors now offer content calculators and assets such as "Top 10" lists of ways in which their products pay off as well as independent seals of approval from various consulting groups. Some of those sales efforts are often useful to the CFO but more often they are just a small part of the cost justification and ROI calculation process.

The role of CFO as a cost cutter and the primary IT decision maker for larger technology acquisitions dates back to about a decade ago. At many organizations the critical systems and applications preparations for the events surrounding Y2K and mandatory compliance issues produced a big rush to move into E-business initiatives. This had the effect on the CFO of forcing them to forgo the typical ROI analysis trend for a while.

Today, the CFO has once again brought the diligence to the C-Suite as the one whose analytical financial skills and focus on the cost of systems implementation not only augment decisions, but determine them. According to Paul Nastro, “Organizations will invest in technology in pursuit of revenue growth, but they are closely watching expense items that can potentially impact the bottom line savings achieved as a result of technology implementation.”

Not only CFOs are guided in the IT purchase and decision making process by the ROI but most CIOs value ROI as well. Recently a joint survey by Gartner and the Financial Executives Research Foundation found that 42% of the IT organizations top person - the CIO, reports directly to the CFO. The percentage increases to 60% at smaller businesses - those defined as companies with revenues between $50 and $250 million.

In addition, the survey pointed out that CFOs approve 26% of all IT investments, while CIOs approve a mere 5%. This is most likely due to the current state of the global economy as in recessionary markets the CFO must keep a close eye on all expenditures.

Some in the C-Suite believe that this renewed focus on ROI will bolster the CFO-CIO relationship. What is certain though is that a tighter rein on IT spending has triggered more communication between CFOs and CEOs.

Given the current CFO-CIO relationship and constrained IT spending, everything is under close scrutiny by both the CFO and the CIO. It will be interesting to see how the reporting dynamics shift over the next few years as cloud computing adoption really entrenches itself in most organizations and the ROI become more apparent.  As the current economy continues to improve and companies invest more in growth-oriented projects, this should give CFO and CIOs an opportunity to collaborate effectively on all ROI decisions.

Today, unified communications solutions provide the integration of real-time communication services such as instant messaging, presence information, IP based telephony, video conferencing systems, data sharing (such as web connected electronic whiteboards), call control and speech recognition. In addition, these services are also coupled with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging applications including integrated voicemail, e-mail, and SMS.

Achieving this level of integration of disparate technologies is quite a tall order for the average IT department to undertake. Fortunately there are several unified communications solutions to make the life of the CIO simpler when finding the strategic value of UC . The true value the CIO seeks from UC lies in its characteristic interoperability with other systems. The challenge stems from the task of unifying disparate communications systems and applications. These can include legacy phone systems, mobile phones, voicemail, e-mail, conferencing, instant messaging, and even some in house developed custom business applications.

Additionally, CIOs today are challenged by a competitive global economy as their organizations strive to put innovative technologies to work to reduce operating expenses without negatively impacting their ability to serve their regional customer base. Integrated unified communications solutions are able to help CIOs and companies lower costs for example by minimizing telecommunications and conferencing costs, leveraging their existing network and building infrastructure, reducing facilities and equipment needs, and cutting employee travel and commutation expenses.

Another strategic value arises from reducing overall facility requirements and operating costs for employees through the use of UC. By enabling employees to work from virtually anywhere with UC and the implementation of a telecommuting program, companies can reduce many of their existing facilities and equipment needs and eliminate the expense to build out additional office space as the organization increase headcount.

A UC solution can directly help companies specifically by reducing the telecommunications costs associated with various voice and data circuits, long distance toll charges, usage of employee cellular minutes, various video and voice conferencing services, phone system maintenance and support contracts, and dedicated Internet access providers.

Perhaps the most compelling reason for the C-Suite to consider UC adoption in their organization comes from the trend of rising employee mobility rates and the consumerization of IT within an organization's workforce.

The population of the world in 2012 will grow to 7 billion people.  The number of cellular subscriptions worldwide will grow to approximately 6 billion. The number of cellular mobile broadband subscriptions worldwide is approximately 1.2 billion. By some estimates in 2016, smartphones and tablets will put real computing power in the hands of a billion global consumers.

The well intentioned C-Suite is starting to prepare for the fact that mobile is not simply another device for the IT department and helpdesk to support. Mobile becomes the manifestation of a much broader shift to new systems of engagement and collaboration. These systems of engagement help organizations empower their customers, partners, and employees with context-aware apps and smart products. 

According to Forrester, in order to maintain a competitive edge CIOs must step up and work with other C-Suite executives to establish an "office of the chief mobility officer" to implement an enterprise wide mobile strategy. An important part of this strategy should ensure that employees have the proper communications tools in place to be as productive and collaborative as possible from any working location whether from home, office or on the road.

 With the introduction of UC and an employee telecommuting work option, companies can ensure that their employees will remain productive and responsive as possible, regardless of their location.

The trend in UC and mobility is clear, in well organized large companies about 25% of employees spend nearly half of their work week working outside a corporate office location.

Lastly, the combination of UC and the proper employee telecommuting option helps companies recruit and retain valuable employees.  Giving a prospective employee the option to work from their home office provides them with the flexibility to achieve a healthy life-work balance. This worker scenario often translates into improved individual productivity and increased overall customer service. 

America’s mid-sized companies are far more important to the U.S. economy than most people realize. A recent Deloitte survey titled “America’s economic engine” whose purpose was to provide insight into this often overlooked source of economic dynamism yields interesting insights. As a group, this segment employs more people than the entire S&P 500 and has total revenues equivalent to 40 percent of the U.S. GDP. This is a collection of companies that really leverages the latest in IT to drive profits.

Companies recognize the growing importance of technology. They continue to prioritize automation of business processes, data analytics, and business intelligence as triggers to increase productivity and areas where they are most likely to make investments in 2012. According to the survey there seems to be a greater recognition of the benefits of cloud computing. In the Deloitte September 2011 survey, Cloud Computing was recognized as a distant fourth as a means to increase productivity. In the current survey conducted in March 2012, it nearly equaled data analytics and business intelligence in terms of likely investments.

The study clearly shows cloud computing continues to emerge as an important investment priority for senior executives at mid sized companies. When asked what types of investments companies were likely to make in technology, 40% of the respondents cited cloud computing. That is close to automation of business processes coming in at 46% and data analytics at 41%.

In terms of financing, most balance sheets are healthier than they were one year ago, with 35% of respondents predicting higher cash balances and another 55% predicting them to remain stable in the coming year.

While 90% expect capital investment to grow or at least remain stable in 2012, a substantially larger number of companies do not plan to secure financing this year (27% versus 14% in 2011). Companies appear to be more prudent by strengthening their balance sheets to take advantage of opportunities than they were in recent years.

The March 2012 Deloitte survey was conducted by OnResearch and polled 528 executives at midsize U.S. companies. Participating respondents included to senior executives at companies with annual revenues of between $50 million and $1 billion. Approximately 23% of the companies represented were public and the other 77% were privately held. About 76% of the represented business industries were spread across 18 different sectors.

The three largest sectors were professional and business services, retail and distribution, and technology accounted for a total of 24% of the respondents. This number reflects the real diversity of industries in the which the polled executives worked.

The full report is available here.

Leveraging the best that technology has to offer is always a challenge. CIOs are constantly struggling with how best to articulate to the rest of the C-Suite and especially the CFO of the value proposition of an essential piece of enterprise technology.  Procuring and deploying the right business collaboration technology solution is no exception. As CIOs want the best technology available for their end users,  CFOs  will typically require some practical financial answers when it comes to acquiring “the latest and greatest” particularly with IT. 

Technology innovation occurs almost daily and product refresh rates are routinely compressed to shorter and shorter intervals.  No sooner has the latest, greatest solution been deployed than a newer, better solution emerges. As the CIO of your organization you are faced with the reality that your business operates in a world where 40% of many workforces are mobile at any given point in time. It is important that you discover and introduce innovative technologies to let employees come together in groups to collaborate to do work from remote locations. The ultimate goal of the CIO in deployment of a collaborative technology solution is to deliver some type of business benefit such as faster problem resolution, more innovative ideas and quicker time to market new products. 

Hosted collaborative technology solutions can offer the potential to upgrade the business and functional applications rapidly with an ROI period that is short and simple to calculate.  Infrastructure cloud based collaborative solutions help to minimize the risk in making these investments as they are scalable for future growth and offer minimized footprint in a virtualized environment.

The CIO should argue for investment in cloud based collaboration services because these investments in IT are truly providing competitive differentiation.  This stems from the current global trend in cloud computing where the cloud is shifting IT toward a utility model.

 Some business units within an organization desire the self-service, self-reliance choice of selecting and procuring their own SaaS solution.  CIOs can provide outside cloud based collaborative services that can provide independent operating business units with a feeling of empowerment. They can schedule, configure, coordinate, and collaborate across remote locations using the online tools of their choice all while staying in a single integrated product family.

Are you ready to have the conversation with your CFO? 

When CIOs ask for financial resources to support say a business collaboration solution, CFOs will typically ask for additional cost justification or an extensive ROI analysis.  CIOs should expect this and be prepared. CIOs should be confident that their informed purchasing recommendation is based on demonstrations and experiences which they know to be the right action at the right time for their organization. The CIO simply needs to document the request and put it in a form the CFO can understand.

It is important for the CIO to understand why the CFO has made the request for ROI calculations. Technology spending typically represents the biggest single area of capital expenditures within most organizations. Couple that with the kind of clout that CFOs typically gain during tough economic times along with the increase in regulatory and compliance activities in recent years (i.e. Sarbanes-Oxley) and it stands to reason why many  CIOs and IT organizations now fall under the CFO’s watch.

CIO can make the following arguments to the CFO to win their financial support for the deployment of collaborative technologies.

The reasons for adopting cloud based collaboration services are clear: Cloud Computing has the ability to change the way the technology industry itself is shaped as Cloud has changed the computer pricing model. An organization can potentially buy capacity as I needed it and pay for it as Operating Expense instead of Capital Expense. This has the effect of enabling innovation because you may rapidly select a technology solution and deploy it very quickly.

Inform the CFO that by deploying your suggested collaboration solution the entire organization will have anytime, anywhere access to real-time business collaboration services.  The single biggest advantage of running business collaborative solutions in the cloud is that employees can be anywhere and have full access to each key system element through nearly any Internet-enabled device. Your company does not need to build out a complicated VPN. The cloud based collaboration service lends itself to improving access and accuracy of data and in many cases end user accountability.

While many companies adopt cloud applications with the assumption that positive ROI is a given, their main drivers for making the jump to the cloud are to gain overall process efficiencies and to run their businesses better, faster and cheaper. A survey by the Sand Hill Group recently found that increased business agility and cost efficiency are the key drivers for cloud adoption.

While the decision to move to the cloud is about investment justification for the CFO, it is also about using this technology to improve performance around key areas of the business and to drive the desired behaviors from both the CIOs team and the organization at large. The collaboration tools you select need to enable your organizations’ vision and strategy in order to drive the correct process and behaviors. By using the cloud to target opportunities and motivate people, business collaboration investments are ultimately justified.

To make the case for the investment to the CFO you can point out that the rules of funding a business collaboration deployment are the same no matter the size your company. To properly evaluate the project's feasibility, you must be able to compare the expected cost of the project against the expected value to the organization. With most IT projects, the future value of an investment is easy to predict by considering savings, efficiency gains or the reuse of existing resources. Simple forecasting methodology can then be used to calculate a potential return on investment (ROI) to determine a course of action. It is a tried-and-true method, and one the CFO understands. 

By starting with a small group and building on early collaboration technology roll out successes you can focus the CFO on the overall advantages to all the end users in the organization.

The latest quarterly IT Employee Confidence Index report from Technisource shows that overall confidence among U.S. technology professionals has risen to its highest level since Q4 of 2005. According to the report,  IT workers feel better about their job prospects, job stability, and their current company's future. All welcome news for IT pros and even CIOs, after all true leadership and good senior IT management encourages the growth of skills and confidence in their workers. 

The IT Employee Confidence Index is a measure of overall confidence among U.S. technology workers. The recent online survey was conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Technisource and Randstad Technologies included 253 individuals that are employed in the technology industry.

The number of technology workers indicating that the economy is getting stronger nearly doubled in the first quarter of 2012—leading to the highest confidence ratings in the history of the survey. In addition, 20 percent more IT workers reported that they are confident in their ability to find a new job in the first quarter, and 41 percent indicated a likelihood to act on it.

Q1, 2012 Survey Highlights:

IT Worker Confidence in the Economy Spikes

Technology professionals demonstrated a large spike in confidence in the overall economy, with 40 percent now believing the economy is getting stronger, up 18 percentage points from Q4 2011.

One-Third of IT Workers Believe More Jobs are Available

Thirty-two percent of respondents believe that more IT jobs are now available (up 14 percentage points from the previous quarter).

Tech Workers Optimistic About their Employability

42% of IT workers reported feeling confident in their ability to find a new job—showing no change from the previous quarter.

Workers More Likely to Job Hunt

Forty-one percent (and nine percentage points higher than the previous quarter) of technology workers are likely to proactively seek new employment within the next year.

"Companies are once again looking to technology as a competitive advantage and embracing new implementations and migrations," said Bob Dickey, president of Technisource and Randstad Technologies. "We are seeing all levels of confidence ratings reach new highs—clear evidence indicative of an improving recovery in the tech market.  Likewise, our latest report is also seeing the highest number of IT professionals actively seeking to transition from their current employer onto new opportunities since the second quarter of 2008. Given the strength of our industry and the employability of highly-skilled IT workers, it is critical to not lose sight of retention efforts. Specifically, in our business, we continue to see a demand for specialized skills as the job market heats up. We are also seeing more of a rise in the demand for .net and java developers, business analysts, and project managers."

The folks at Facebook have just announced the launch of the Antivirus Marketplace. They have developed the service with industry partners for the purpose of enhancing the protection for people on Facebook. 

As part of the Antivirus Marketplace, Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos and Symantec will augment Facebook's URL blacklist system with their own URL blacklist databases. The AV Marketplace will also let people download six-month licenses to full versions of anti-virus software at no charge. 

It is hard to tell if Facebook is acting solely in a humanistic manner or will the new service ultimately benefit themselves as they struggle with constant criticisms over privacy policies and personal data protection concerns.

On the surface this is a great service offering and provides tremendous added value to the 900 Million registered Facebook users worldwide.

The intention of the Facebook team in the launching of the Anitvirus Marketplace site on their social network is aimed at making their users and their systems more secure.

"This means that whenever you click a link on our site, you benefit not just from Facebook s existing protections,but the ongoing vigilance of the world s leading corporations involved in computer security," the Facebook Security Team said in an April 25 post on the company's blog. "At the moment, less than 4% of content shared is spam (compared to nearly 90% of email), and we are looking forward to making even more progress in the future."

In addition, the security software vendors will be contributing to Facebook's Security Blog to talk about security issues and concerns, and to give users educational materials regarding security.

The Antivirus Marketplace is welcome news to the Facebook community.  Facebook officials become increasingly more involved in the area of security for their end user and the systems they use to access Facebook. 

The Facebook social network for years has incurred the wrath of various privacy advocates, who have voiced concerns over the amount of personal data the site collects on its users and the ever-changing privacy policies that seem to be aimed more at exposing personal information than protecting privacy.

Facebook has just announced they have launched the Antivirus Marketplace. They have developed the service with industry partners for the purpose of enhancing the protection for people on Facebook. 

As part of the Antivirus Marketplace, Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos and Symantec will augment Facebook's URL blacklist system with their own URL blacklist databases. The AV Marketplace will also let people download six-month licenses to full versions of anti-virus software at no charge. 

This is a great service offering and tremendous added value to the 900 Million registered Facebook users worldwide.

The intention of the Facebook team in the launching of the Anitvirus Marketplance site on their social network is aimed at making their users and their systems more secure.

"This means that whenever you click a link on our site, you benefit not just from Facebook s existing protections,but the ongoing vigilance of the world s leading corporations involved in computer security," the Facebook Security Team said in an April 25 post on the company's blog. "At the moment, less than 4% of content shared is spam (compared to nearly 90% of email), and we are looking forward to making even more progress in the future."

In addition, the security software vendors will be contributing to Facebook's Security Blog to talk about security issues and concerns, and to give users educational materials regarding security.

The Antivirus Marketplace is welcome news to the Facebook community.  Facebook officials become increasingly more involved in the area of security for their end user and the systems they use to access Facebook. 

The Facebook social network for years has incurred the wrath of various privacy advocates, who have voiced concerns over the amount of personal data the site collects on its users and the ever-changing privacy policies that seem to be aimed more at exposing personal information than protecting privacy.

 Approximately 66% of the CEOs and other senior executives in charge of larger companies (defined as companies with $500m or more in annual revenues) plan to increase their IT investments in 2012. Their aim  and top priority is to drive business growth, despite their concerns about the ongoing uncertain global economic outlook.

These finding were culled from survey results published recently by Gartner in the report, CEO Survey 2012: The Year of Living Hesitantly. It is based on the responses of more than 220 CEOs November and December 2011.

The report also highlights that CEO concerns about the global economy are less severe in Asia-Pacific and North America than in Europe and Africa.

There remains belief among CEOs in all three geographic regions that an economic downturn will impact their organizations in 2012.

Perhaps of more interest to the CIO and the rest of the C-Suite, the results demonstrate a real gap between what CEOs expect from their IT investments and the relatively low expectations they have for their company CIOs and senior It staffers. These individuals are rarely viewed as important strategic advisers and are generally not expected to become business leaders. This news should come as a real eye opener to most CIOs.

That discovery brings a warning from Jorge Lopez, a VP and analyst at Gartner. “CEOs should re-examine the role the CIO plays today in business innovation and strategy,” said Mr Lopez. “As the information age progresses, the risk of being blindsided by new forms of digital competition is rising.”

“Costs are now the second biggest priority area, the highest ranking in our surveys since 2009,” according to  Mark Raskino, vice-president and fellow at Gartner. “Yet CEOs seem determined to maintain a growth posture as the number one priority for now, and geographic expansion is the primary growth approach.”

To help reach their goals, CEOs are leveraging new technologies while continuing to invest in mature ones such as  customer relationship management (CRM). 

“The intention to invest in technology is comparatively healthy,” said Mr Lopez.

“The newer trends, such as mobile and cloud, are rising to the foreground of CEOs’ attention. However, customer relationship management remains CEOs’ favorite IT capability, because marketing is a never-ending competitive quest for customer retention.”

Here are some other selected highlights from the survey:

1. Top business risks CEOs face in 2012 (represented as % respondents):

Regulatory Risk 22% , Enterprise Finance Risk 20%, Economic Downturn 13%, Loss of Talent/Workforce 13%, IT System and Security Risk 9%

2. 2012 IT Budget Trends (% respondents)

43.6% say the budget will stay the same, 39.9% say their IT budgets will increase , 14.4% say IT budget will decrease.

3. More Investment in Big Data as 39.3% of respondents say their organizations will invest this year in Data Driven Management technology.

4. Cloud Computing adoption on the rise as 32.3% of respondents said Cloud Computing initives will receive investment.

5. Enterprise mobility remains a top priority as 31.9% of CEOs said their organizations will invest in Enterprise Mobility.

6. 33% of CEOs said they were their company's innovation leader. Only 4% cited the CIO. Ouch!

 Approximately 66% of the CEOs and other senior executives in charge of larger companies ( > $500m or more in annual revenues) plan to increase their IT investments in 2012. Their aim aim and top priority is to drive business growth, despite their concerns about the uncertain global economic outlook.

These finding were culled from survey results published recently by Gartner in the report, CEO Survey 2012: The Year of Living Hesitantly. It is based on the responses of more than 220 CEOs November and December 2011.

The report also highlights that CEO concerns about the global economy are less severe in Asia-Pacific and North America than in Europe and Africa.

There remains belief among CEOs in all three geographic regions that an economic downturn will impact their organizations in 2012.

Perhaps of more interest to the CIO and the rest of the C-Suite, the results demonstrate a real gap between what CEOs expect from their IT investments and the relatively low expectations they have for their company 

CIOs and senior It staffers. These individuals are rarely viewed as important strategic advisers and are generally not expected to become business leaders. This news should come as a real eye opener to most CIOs.

That discovery brings warning from Jorge Lopez, a VP and analyst at Gartner. “CEOs should re-examine the role the CIO plays today in business innovation and strategy,” said Mr Lopez. “As the information age progresses, the risk of being blindsided by new forms of digital competition is rising.”

“Costs are now the second biggest priority area, the highest ranking in our surveys since 2009,” according to  Mark Raskino, vice-president and fellow at Gartner. “Yet CEOs seem determined to maintain a growth posture as the number one priority for now, and geographic expansion is the primary growth approach.”

To help reach their goals, CEOs are leveraging new technologies while continuing to invest in mature ones such as  customer relationship management (CRM). 

“The intention to invest in technology is comparatively healthy,” said Mr Lopez.

“The newer trends, such as mobile and cloud, are rising to the foreground of CEOs’ attention. However, customer relationship management remains CEOs’ favorite IT capability, because marketing is a never-ending competitive quest for customer retention.”

Here are some other selected highlights from the survey:

1. Top business risks CEOs face in 2012 (represented as % respondents):

Regulatory Risk 22% , Enterprise Finance Risk 20%, Economic Downturn 13%, Loss of Talent/Workforce 13%, IT System and Security Risk 9%

2. 2012 IT Budget Trends (% respondents)

43.6% say the budget will stay the same, 39.9% say their IT budgets will increase , 14.4% say IT budget will decrease.

3. More Investment in Big Data as 39.3% of respondents say their organizations will invest this year in Data Driven Management technology.

4. Cloud Computing adoption on the rise as 32.3% of respondents said Cloud Computing initives will receive investment.

5. Enterprise mobility remains a top priority as 31.9% of CEOs said their organizations will invest in Enterprise Mobility.

6. 33% of CEOs said they were their company's innovation leader. Only 4% cited the CIO. Ouch!

CIOs come and go from fortune 2000 companies, here is a select summary of companies, locations, and their recent CIO post changes from around the US.

1. American Electric Power, Columbus, Michael A. Rozsa will serve as CIO.

2. Citigroup New York, NY - Clark Lovrien is named Business Information Security Officer. 

3. Experian, Costa Mesa, CA - John Finch is named Global CIO.

4. Georgia Health Sciences University, Augusta, GA - Charles Enicks is hired as CIO. 

5. Hackensack University Medical Center, Hackensack, NJ - Shafiq Rab is named CIO. 

6. Highmark, Pittsburgh, PA - Jacqueline Dailey is named CIO Provider Services.

7. JPMorgan Chase New York, NY - Moshe Castiel is named VP Datawarehousing & Information Management Development. 

8. Kaiser Permanente, Oakland, CA - Steve Wretling is promoted to VP Mobility & Information Services 

9. Owens & Minor, Mechanicsville, VA - Byron Wilson is named VP IT Operations. 

10. Legacy Health System, Portland, OR - John Kenagy is named CIO. 

11. Spectrum Health System, Grand Rapids, MI - Larry Whiteside Jr. is named CISO. 

12. TD Bank Portland, ME - Tom Barkhuff is named CIO. 

The first commercially available smartphone running on Intel designed microprocessors will be going on sale. The product is called the Xolo X900 from a company called Lava Mobile. The Lava handset is available in India from priced for around $423. 

The Lava mobile phones features Dual-SIM option,long-life battery, dual LED powerful torch, games, bluetooth, support up to 8 GB memory, FM radio with recording, one touch music player, dual stereo speakers, dual charging point, GPRS and speakerphone. “LAVA’s vision is to empower people with affordable, high-quality, innovative mobile handsets, catering specifically to their different needs.” according to Balakrishna Rao, CEO, LAVA International Ltd.

This is an important milestone for Intel as represents Intel’s first entry into a phone world dominated by chips based on designs of the UK’s Arm.

In addition Intel has just launched their third generation of Core microprocessors that it intends will defend its PC territory from many mobile competitors.

See also interview with Intel's Ajay Chandramouly On Xeon E5- 2600 Processor Advantages in Big Data

At an event in San Francisco recently, Intel is launching a new family of Core microprocessors, called Ivy Bridge, which shrink circuit widths from 32 to 22 billionths of a metre i.e. nanometres, offering better performance.

Ivy Bridge’s advances could help Intel fight off competition from Arm-based mobile-phone chipmakers who can see opportunities  into the PC market as Microsoft is releasing its Windows 8 software this year. MS Windows 8 will include the first Arm compatible version of its operating system.

Intel has traditionally offered faster chips, but has not been able to match the battery-saving low power draw of Arm processors. As Intel continues to reduce the footprint of its chips they will be in a better position to compete.

If you look at Intel’s road map over the next two years, they are really pushing the manufacturing technology transition faster than anyone else. If all goes according to the current technology road map, at some point in late 2013 or early 2014, Intel will be at 14-nanometre manufacturing for smartphones and have close to a one-generation lead.

Intel's Arm rival phone makers will typically rely on Asian foundries to make their chips and Qualcomm warned last week it was  having trouble getting enough 28nm chips from its suppliers.

While the Lava launch represents a small beginning for Intel, it has announced bigger names, including Motorola and Lenovo, also have Intel-based phones in the pipeline.