The 2011 Harvey Nash / PA Consulting Group CIO Survey revealing that the IT function  is emerging from the recession leaner, more flexible and partnering with a wider range of smaller local and offshore suppliers.

The 13th edition of the survey, undertaken by Harvey Nash in association with PA Consulting Group, reflected the views of over 2,500 technology leaders around the world and reveals that CIOs are:

• Increasingly using flexible labour. 84 per cent of CIOs are looking to increase or maintain this level of flexibility. The majority of CIOs (76 per cent) have a flexible labour component of up to one-quarter of their entire workforce that includes the use of contract, temporary workers and offshore workers.
• Spending a greater percentage of their IT budget on outsourced activity than ever before. Almost one-third of global CIOs will spend up to a quarter of their entire IT budget this year on outsourced activity, and almost half (46 per cent) expect to increase their outsource spend over the coming year.
• Turning away from large-scale suppliers and increasingly partnering with multiple niche suppliers who can provide specialist skills to drive innovation around mobile, cloud and web computing. 39 per cent are expecting to increase their dependence on multi-sourcing in the next 12 months.
• Focusing on building business rather than technical skills in their internal teams. In a significant drop this year, less than half (42 per cent) of global CIOs felt their organisation suffered from a shortage of technology skills. This is a 16 per cent decline from 2010 and corresponds with the growth of multi-sourcing and use of flexible labour. By far the most in demand skills for internal teams were business analyses and business facing architecture.

Albert Ellis, CEO Harvey Nash, commented "Despite the global economic uncertainty and fears of a slowdown, the pace of technological change continues. As companies emerge from recession CIOs are facing new challenges presented by a world which is increasingly mobile using social networking tools to transact and communicate.

"Technology leaders have to deal with the two main priorities from the CEO: driving innovation particularly in the mobile applications area, whilst continuing to manage costs. The result is an increased dependence on a flexible, multi-sourced environment which has impacted on the CIOs and the skills they need in their teams. Not only must technology functions be business facing, rather than technical, leadership is required from both the CIO and CEO to meet the challenge of the new mobile and socially networked world."

Tom McEwan, global head of IT consulting at PA Consulting Group, said "The Harvey Nash / PA Consulting Group survey highlights that, to enable their organisations to be fit for the future, CIOs need to be agile on a utility/innovation spectrum, flexing their approach to respond to the combination of a volatile financial environment,  a more open connected IT model and their organisation's particular circumstances."