Global Impacts
Globalization also affects how technology executives address planning, collaboration, leadership, compliance, staffing, resourcing, application development and deployment, and IT infrastructure. About 70 percent of the survey respondents say it has extensively or somewhat affected the way they address each of those issues. In particular, globalization has had an extensive impact on planning, say 40 percent of the survey respondents.

When it comes to IT planning, globalization affects the way executives plan and develop their technology investment strategies, align IT with the business, assess risk, choose which applications and business processes to support, and plan and forecast budgets. It also affects how these executives are regarded by and consult with other C-level executives. "Planning, project management and risk identification are certainly more complex with globalization, and the total potential risk is typically greater," says Karaman of NightHawk. For example, different countries have different types of healthcare coverage and data-confidentiality policies, he says. This means NightHawk must offer variations in its service offering.