Skip to main content

LatAm CEOs Focus on IT Business Alignment

In its recent market study, IDC explores the business priorities of the leading corporate executives in South America's three largest economies. The study explores various topics ranging from business expectations of IT to how IT vendors can be more effective.

In total, 187 interviews were conducted with CEOs, business vice presidents, and IT directors based in Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. The executives represented medium- to large-sized enterprises from a diverse spectrum of industries including services, finance, commerce, telecom, communications, utilities, and manufacturing.

The study opens with an updated view of the economic and business perspectives for 2008. Even with a prolonged economic crisis expected in the United States, Latin American CEOs remain optimistic: 80 percent of those interviewed in the three countries believe that their business prospects will be better in six months that they are today.

And business as well as IT leaders are armed with OPEX and CAPEX budgets that are larger in 2008 than in 2007.

Other data shows that more than 70 percent of the financial institutions surveyed are increasing their overall operational expenses this year, while 55 percent of these institutions will increase their IT spending.

Companies in the communications, utilities, telecom and media industries are keeping their investments more conservative across the region, reflecting the challenging margins in these industries today. The services industry appears to be the industry most aggressively increasing its CAPEX as compared to its operational expenses.

With regards to business priorities for 2008, concern for the customer remains on the top of the CEO agenda in Latin America. What has changed from a similar analysis done in 2006 is that product innovation rose from fifth to second priority, further supporting the CEO focus on maintaining a competitive position in the marketplace.

"Achieving greater efficiencies through the supply chain is now the fifth priority, which is quite interesting since this was not even mentioned in our research from 2006," noted Eric Prothero, group vice president, Latin America. Sales productivity remained third on the list, while IT responsiveness rose from fifth to fourth.

The key areas for IT investment in 2008, according to these business executives, are back office applications at the top of the list, followed by security solutions and customers relationship solutions.

"Based on these solution needs, we expect to see above average spending on application software services, identity management, content management, and integrated reporting/query services in Latin America this year," added Prothero.

The majority of the CEOs interviewed believe that the number one focus for their IT department should be developing new strategic applications to improve competitiveness. More than half of the corporate leaders who participated in the survey believe that IT is a fundamental piece in assuring the operational effectiveness of the organization and see IT as a competitive advantage.

Clearly, increased adoption of managed service offerings is one way to reach that goal.

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Talent Demand Exceeds Supply in Asia-Pac

Even the savviest CEO's desire for a digital transformation advantage has to face the global market reality -- there simply isn't enough skilled and experienced talent available to meet demand. According to the latest market study by IDC, around 60-80 percent of Asia-Pacific (AP) organizations find it "difficult" or "extremely difficult" to fill many IT roles -- including cybersecurity, software development, and data insight professionals. Major consequences of the skills shortage are increased workload on remaining digital business and IT employees, increased security risks, and loss of "hard-to-replace" critical transformation knowledge. Digital Business Talent Market Development Although big tech companies' layoffs are making headlines, they are not representative of the overall global marketplace. Ongoing difficulty to fill key practitioner vacancies is still among the top issues faced by leaders across industries. "Skills are difficul

Mobile Device Market Still Awaiting Recovery

The mobile devices market has experienced three years of unpredictable demand. The global pandemic, geopolitical pressures, supply chain issues, and macroeconomic headwinds have hindered the sector's consistent growth potential. This extremely challenging environment has dramatically affected both demand and supply chains. It has led to subsequent inflationary pressures, leading to a worsening global cost of living crisis suppressing growth and confidence in the sector. In tandem, mobile device industry stakeholders have become more cautious triggering market uncertainties. Mobile Device Market Development Operating under such a backdrop, the development of mobile device ecosystems and vendor landscapes have been impacted severely. Many of these market pressures persisted throughout 2022 and now into 2023, borne chiefly by the smartphone market. According to the latest worldwide market study by ABI Research, worldwide smartphone shipments in 2022 declined 9.6 percent Year-over-Year

Open Banking Usage to Grow by 470 Percent

The Open Banking business model has been advantageous for Third-Party Providers (TPPs), helping them to extend their offerings into other areas of financial services with new capabilities. Open Banking is also advantageous for traditional banking institutions, despite the perceived loss of custodianship over their data, by providing greater accessibility to more bank services. Furthermore, Open Banking can help serve Mobile Internet providers that are able to leverage it to create tailored services according to customers’ preferences and/or economic limitations. Open Banking Market Development Since traditional banking services are made more convenient by TPPs via greater data access, customers can proactively manage their finances and shape the development of new financial offerings. This is particularly noticeable in the realm of Digital Payments, where retail merchants and customers transact through eCommerce, which has the greatest number of use cases for Open Banking. These includ