2015 CIO Survey and CIOs as Brokers

In partnership with the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) and Grant Thornton, CompTIA released the results of the annual State CIO Survey today at the annual NASCIO Conference in Salt Lake City.

One of the more prominent findings from the survey, and one that resonated with CompTIA State & Local government and Education (SLED) members, is related to the changing role of state CIOs in service models at the state level.  Questions relating to this topic have been posed to CIOs since 2010, showing a trend towards CIOs serving as centralized brokers for shared IT services.

The largest trend changes were observed when CIOs were asked the question, “What business models and sourcing strategies does your state CIO organization currently use?”  The number of CIOs that are outsourcing some of their IT applications and services has jumped 37% over the last five years.  To further the point, fewer CIOs are owning and operating data centers and all state IT assets and operations.  As the largest representative of IT vendors in the world, CompTIA welcomes this trend and looks forward to our vendor members being able to assist state governments in delivery of IT services in a more efficient and effective manner.

For some insight on exactly where the vendor opportunities might be, the survey delved into the specific ways in which CIOs plan to deliver IT services.  Of the 47 responding states, none said they were downsizing or scaling back outsourced operations.  55% plan to outsource business applications through a SaaS model and 49% plan to downsize state owned and operated data centers.  Additionally, 43% will expand outsourcing.  Overall, all CIOs plan to become brokers for some or all of their services in the future.  

The transition will be impacted by funding models as many state CIO budgets are funded through chargeback models.  Innovative procurement methods that maintain CIO funding could be necessary, as the current plan for 60% of states is to add a broker service fee to recover costs.  It is incumbent on the industry to help craft these models.  CompTIA looks forward to the robust discussions and shift to vendor-maintained service models in state IT models.  This is a model that works well, saves money, and provides a robust vendor community serving the SLED market.