Selling over smartphones and using social media marketing topped the list in the latest survey.
According to the results of a survey that was administered to IT executives, among the top priorities that they are facing at the moment and into the future are mobile commerce and social media marketing.
These professionals are seeing a rapid broadening in their responsibilities and roles due to smartphones.
They are discovering that they are being expected to be able to manage a rapidly growing list of different functions with only an average level of competency, according to the results of the survey. This is leading IT executives around the world to face a considerable struggle in their ability to keep up with mobile commerce and other associated needs, as well as to be able to mitigate the risk connected with the use of this technology, while still maintaining regulatory compliance.
The performance challenges due to mobile commerce and its rapid growth have been building.
According to the 2013 IT Priorities Survey performed by Protiviti, when the participants were asked to gauge their competency levels in various central areas of IT technical knowledge (using a scale of 1 through 5, with 5 being the highest score), almost two hundred CIOs, chief security officers, chief technology officers, and IT vice presidents and directors reported an overall average rank of only 2.8 in the areas of social media integration, social media security, and mobile commerce integration, security, and policy.
The managing director for the Asia Pacific region at Protiviti, Gary Anderson, explained that “The continued rapid global expansion of the smart phone and mobile applications marketplace reflects the strong demand from business leaders and consumers for access to information anytime and anywhere, which presents exciting opportunities for delivering value. However, it also creates greater technology risk potential.”
The outcome of this mobile commerce and social media marketing trend among IT professionals has been a building pressure on their departments and their business leaders. They are continually expected to be able to deliver more smartphone and tablet technology enabled services. Therefore, they find themselves taking on substantially more risk than they are prepared to handle.