U.S. IT Innovation Trailing Other Nations According to CA Technologies Survey

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U.S. IT Innovation Trailing Other Nations According to CA Technologies Survey

Organizations More Frequently Cite Budget, Information Overload and Lack of Reward as Obstacles to Innovation

ISLANDIA, N.Y., September 24, 2012 – The U.S. is a laggard when it comes to encouraging and rewarding IT innovation, according to a CA Technologies (NASDAQ:CA) report unveiled today. The global study—“Why IT Needs to Lead Now: The Innovation Imperative”—demonstrates the urgent need for many IT organizations to transition from an ad hoc approach to innovation* to a more mature, structured method to deliver higher-quality business services faster.

According to the large organizations surveyed, only 28 percent of U.S. respondents said innovation is frequently or widely practiced, compared to 58 percent of European and 45 percent of Asian respondents. And while 63 percent of worldwide respondents have formal processes to measure innovation success, it is largely ad hoc or nonexistent in the U.S., with 26 percent of U.S. respondents reporting there is no measurement process in place.

U.S. based organizations are also facing different obstacles than their international counterparts. When asked about key obstacles to innovation, the U.S. is significantly more likely to cite budget issues (47 percent versus 28 percent in Europe, and 24 percent in Asia Pacific (AP)); information overload/too entrenched in repetitive tasks (43 percent versus 29 percent in Europe and 18 percent in AP); and, lack of an incentive/rewards structure (26 percent versus 19 percent in Europe and AP).

More budget dollars are also spent on maintenance and “keeping the lights on” in the U.S. compared to overseas respondents (73 percent of U.S. versus 63 percent for Europe and 61 percent for AP), limiting the available budget dollars for new projects. Additionally, U.S. organizations embrace and leverage “technology disruption” far less frequently than their counterparts. Only 17 percent of U.S. respondents indicated that technology disruption projects frequently occur, versus 30 percent and 38 percent for their European and Asian counterparts, respectively.

“In addition to these troubling gaps, the research also tells us that innovation is a critical driver to success given today’s economic pressures, 24x7 connectivity, global market access, lower barriers to entry for competitors, and new expectations from tech-savvy consumers, all of which create unprecedented demands on today’s IT leaders,” said Andi Mann, vice president, Strategic Solutions at CA Technologies. “Not prioritizing, fostering and rewarding innovation can have dire consequences. It makes organizations less competitive, unable to attract new customers and therefore, less relevant in the market, and it hurts the bottom line.”

Mann continued, “By responding to this ‘Innovation Imperative,’ IT leaders can deliver new business services faster and more efficiently. They are in prime position to lead innovation efforts in their organizations by exploiting the convergence of disruptive technologies such as social, mobile, cloud, virtualization and big data to support their business-centric strategies with innovative services or solutions.” 

From a global perspective, the relationship between IT and the business needs significant improvement with 34 percent of business executives characterizing their relationship with IT as combative, distrustful or siloed, and 31 percent of global IT executives agree with that assessment. Similarly, one-third of IT respondents identified IT as an “authority or expert on innovation,” while only one-fifth (21 percent) of business executives believe the same.

Across all eight areas of IT readiness to support and enable innovation, business executives give low grades to IT, while IT respondents rate themselves higher. For example, business executives rate IT poor or fair on overall speed/agility (48 percent), business and communication skills (41 percent), receptiveness to new ideas (40 percent), access to the right technology (41 percent) and knowledge of the business (37 percent). The majority of IT respondents (62 to 75 percent, depending on the specific item) rate themselves as good or excellent across those same metrics.

The study also shows a clear gap globally between how IT perceives its ability to drive innovation and how business respondents view IT’s ability to do so. Thirty-four percent of IT respondents believe IT is the main driver of innovation in their organization, compared to just 14 percent of business executives who report the same, a 20-point gap.

On the positive front, one-third of respondents on both sides agree that IT is an “enabler of innovation,” suggesting that IT leaders may have the opportunity to elevate their role by building on this foundation.

Additional key findings include:

• When asked about the possible outcomes related to a lack of investment in innovation, the top responses across business and IT included an inability to attract new customers/markets (37 percent), increased competitive pressure (32 percent) and revenue loss (31 percent).

• Looking at outcomes they have achieved or expect to achieve from innovation, the majority of respondents cited higher customer satisfaction (86 percent) and increased speed to market (79 percent). Other benefits include the ability to enter new markets (82 percent), increased profit (85 percent) and revenue/market share (83 percent), and the identification of growth opportunities (81 percent).

• Innovative organizations are more likely than their less innovative peers to emphasize experimentation and exploration; however, they place even more emphasis on meeting or anticipating customer needs, analysis and exploiting existing knowledge. Counter to conventional thinking, they also place more emphasis on planning and structure, indicating that they take a more mature approach to how innovation projects are managed and measured.

• Areas of planned technology investment related to innovation over the next 12 months include mobile, cloud, security, business analytics, service management, virtualization and automation.

To learn more about the Innovation Imperative research and to access additional materials including the complete report download, visitwww.ca.com/ii.

Research Methodology

CA Technologies commissioned IDG Research Services to conduct a global study of an even mix of IT and business executives at enterprise organizations in a range of verticals. Respondents were required to hold IT executive (Director or above) or business executive (VP or above) titles at enterprise organizations with revenues of $1 billion or more in the U.S. and $250 million or more outside the country; 50 percent held C-level titles. A total of 800 surveys were completed in June and July 2012: 150 in the U.S., 300 in EMEA (100 each in the France, Germany and the U.K.), 275 in AP (100 each in Japan and Singapore; 75 in Australia), and 75 in Brazil.

_{*For the purposes of this study, innovation is defined as “a practice, process or technology that is demonstrably new and different and has a measurable positive impact on an organization’s success.”}

About CA Technologies

CA Technologies (NASDAQ: CA) provides IT management solutions that help customers manage and secure complex IT environments to support agile business services. Organizations leverage CA Technologies software and SaaS solutions to accelerate innovation, transform infrastructure and secure data and identities, from the data center to the cloud. Learn more about CA Technologies at www.ca.com.