Singapore - Chief information officers (CIOs) based in six of the 10 members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have a high degree of confidence in their ability to handle technology-related functions, a study released Monday found.

Conducted by the French business school Insead and IBM, 94 per cent of the executives queried maintained their importance has gone up.

The 2008 ASEAN CIO Leadership Study was conducted among 165 CIOs in Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore from January to May.

Some significant differences were found between the perception of ASEAN CIOs and their global counterparts surveyed last year, according to the findings published in Singapore's Business Times.

ASEAN CIOs placed greater emphasis on intra-organization and delivery-focused activities such as stressing self-awareness, managing change and demonstrating resourcefulness. They were highly conscious of the need to prove themselves, the survey found.

CIOs in the worldwide study, on the other hand, stressed influence-oriented qualities such as political savvy, leadership and power.

Persuading senior leadership of the importance of information technology was rated as extremely important by 44 per cent of ASEAN respondents, compared with 19 per cent worldwide.

The survey "confirmed Malaysia's standing alongside Singapore as two of ASEAN's most mature technology markets," the newspaper quoted IBM's Paul Moung as saying.

CIOs from Thai-based companies reported "showing the company the value of IT" as an ongoing responsibility, he noted.

Such concerns of Thai CIOs could be an indication that IT is still perceived as a cost centre rather than as a potential source of competitive advantage, Moung said. (dpa)