Dive Brief:
- Nearly 4 in 5 CIOs say they'll increase spending on customer experience in 2023, according to the Logicalis Global CIO Report 2023, published last week. The company surveyed 1,000 technology leaders.
- Despite the economic downturn, nearly 4 in 5 executives say they will also increase transformation spending this year.
- The employee experience is top of mind for technology executives this year, with 3 in 5 expecting to adopt new technologies to improve worker experience. Better connectivity, security improvements for remote workers and new well-being initiatives are among the key initiatives they expect to roll out.
Dive Insight:
The current backdrop for big technology decisions is a choppy economic forecast, which leads companies to focus on revenue-yielding IT projects — and scrutinize spending.
Yet, addressing customer needs remains critical. It's a task CIOs are well-suited for given the reliance on digital platforms for customer interactions.
"CIOs are responding to market challenges by developing strategies that drive growth, improve efficiency, and deliver the innovation increasingly demanded by customers, employees and partners," the report states.
The CIO shift toward influencing business strategy has long been in the works. Executives in charge of technology also play a role in how companies operate by providing tools and processes.
Enterprise technology leaders have dialed back their focus on the internal workings of tools and platforms, while retaining a baseline of obligations, and have explored more external obligations directly tied to customers, said Stephanie Woerner, principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Director of MIT CISR.
CIO involvement on customer-facing issues is set to expand. By 2025, 1 in 10 technology leaders will operate as the de facto leader of customer experience for their companies, according to Gartner projections.
