Many CIOs not yet ready for digitisation: Survey

Digitisation might be touted as the next big thing in enterprise IT, but chief information officers (CIOs) of many companies are apparently not prepared for it, says a survey.

A global survey of CIOs by Gartner showed that many CIOs feel overwhelmed by the prospect of building digital leadership while renovating the core of IT infrastructure and capability for the digital future. The survey found that 51% of CIOs are concerned that the digital torrent is coming faster than they can cope and 42% don’t feel that they have the talent needed to face this future.

“2014 must be a year of significant change if CIOs are to help their businesses and public sector agencies remain relevant in an increasingly digital world,” said Dave Aron, vice-president and Gartner Fellow.

The survey was conducted in the fourth quarter of 2013 and included 2,339 CIOs, representing more than $300 billion in CIO IT budgets in 77 countries. The Gartner Executive Programs report, ‘Taming the Digital Dragon: The 2014 CIO Agenda’, represents a comprehensive examination of business priorities and CIO strategies.

A press release from the company says that during the first era of enterprise IT, the focus was on how IT could help do new and seemingly magical things—automating operations to create massive improvements in speed and scale, and providing business leaders with management information they never had before. The last decade has represented the second era of enterprise IT, an era of industrialization of enterprise IT, making it more reliable, predictable, open and transparent. However, while this second era has been necessary and powerful, tight budgets and little appetite for risk left scant room for innovation.

Entering the third era of enterprise IT technological and societal trends, such as the Nexus of Forces and the Internet of Things, are changing everything; not only improving what businesses do with technology to make themselves faster, cheaper and more scalable, but fundamentally changing businesses with information and technology, changing the basis of competition and in some cases, creating new industries.

“2014 will be a year of dual goals: responding to ongoing needs for efficiency and growth, but also shifting to exploit a fundamentally different digital paradigm. Ignoring either of these is not an option,” said Aron.

“The behaviors mastered in the second era of enterprise IT, like treating colleagues as customers, are potential hindrances to exploiting digitalization,” said Graham Waller, vice-president and executive partner for Gartner Executive Programs. “In 2014, CIOs must face the challenge of bridging the second and third eras. They have to build digital leadership and bimodal capability, while renovating the core of IT infrastructure and capability for the digital future.”

“CIOs are facing all the challenges they have for many years, plus a flood of digital opportunities and threats. Digitalization raises questions about strategy, leadership, structure, talent, financing and almost everything else,” said Aron. “All industries in all geographies are undergoing digital disruption. This is both a CIO’s dream come true and a career-changing leadership challenge.”

The press release said most businesses have established IT leadership, strategy and governance but have a vacuum in digital leadership. To exploit new digital opportunities and ensure that the core of IT services is ready, there must be clear digital leadership, strategy and governance, and all business executives must become digitally savvy. Indeed, the 2014 CIO Survey shows that the CEO’s digital savvy is one of the best indicators of IT and business performance.