This past year has brought us no shortage of industry studies and reports, and we've done our best to highlight the ones we thought were most relevant for CIOs in our weekly news roundups. Here, we look back at the year in numbers and provide a timeline of the stats that had the CIO community buzzing each month of 2016.
January
40: The percentage of line-of-business executives who said they view the CIO as an innovation officer responsible for leading their company's digital transformation. (IDC: The Changing Role of IT Leadership: CIO Perspectives for 2016)
February
88: The percentage of CIO Magazine survey respondents who said the CIO role is becoming increasingly challenging. Seventy-one percent noted that it was difficult to strike the right balance between innovation and operational efficiency and security. (CIO Magazine: 15th annual State of the CIO)
March
Eight in 10: The number of IT professionals and executives who believe their organization’s data is safer in the cloud, yet still say security is the top barrier in moving to the cloud. (EloveIP: Adoption if Cloud Service in North America)
April
83: The percentage of IT leaders who had open positions to fill. Another 69 percent cited a lack of qualified applicants in the talent pool as a major challenge. (CIO Executive Council: 2016 IT Talent Assessment Survey)
May
Four in 10: The number of CIOs who said they spend at least one day a week outside of IT. Long-standing CIO priorities also dropped in importance, such as increasing operational efficiencies (dropped 16 percent) and delivering stable IT performance (dropped 27 percent). (Harvey Nash and KPMG: 2016 CIO Survey)
June
0: We didn’t highlight any industry reports in June. Perhaps all the researchers were on summer vacation.
July
59: The percentage of IT leaders who said their organizations would not be ready for digital business within the next two years. (Gartner)
August
87: The percentage of survey respondents who said digital disruption would impact their industry. Only 44 percent thought their organizations were adequately preparing for it. (MIT Sloan Management Review: Aligning the Organization for its Digital Future)
September
19: The percentage of CIO/CTOs leading digital transformation. This trailed both the CMO, at 34 percent, and the CEO, at 27 percent. (Altimeter: The 2016 State of Digital Transformation)
October
558,713: The number of information technology jobs that remain “open” after 90 days of search. That translates into 50,284,170 days of IT work are lost to the skills gap in America. (CompTIA and Burning Glass Technologies)
November
146: The dollar amount – in billions – that the global public cloud market will hit in 2017, up from $87 billion in 2015. (Forrester: Predictions 2017: Customer-Obsessed Enterprises Launch Cloud's Second Decade)
December
86: The percentage of companies that said they find it challenging to find and hire technical talent. Fifty-three percent reported hiring people who didn't meet the job requirements because of immediate need. (Indeed)
