Dive Brief:
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Companies have moved from toying with digital technologies to implementing at scale. One-third of CIOs reported mature digital efforts, compared to 17% last year, according to Gartner research presented by Andy Rowsell-Jones, VP and distinguished analyst at Gartner, at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo in Orlando, Florida in October.
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Of the more than 3,100 CIOs from around the world surveyed, almost half are evolving their business models, driven in part by customer demands. Though consumers are inspiring change, CIOs need to rehearse what an evolved business model means to enterprise technology and communicate it to the C-suite, according to Rowsell-Jones.
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Key to transformation is taking digital seriously, Rowsell-Jones said. To understand the impact of digital efforts, and their effectiveness, stakeholders have to assess performance metrics. Almost 90% of top performers measure the ROI of digital, according to Gartner.
Dive Insight:
The first glimmer of digital technology came in 2014, according to Rowsell-Jones. Now, many businesses have moved from "digital dabbling" to "digital at scale," but laggards persist.
Those yet to modernize — or start a transformation — remain grounded in process-centric IT industrialization, focused more on efficiency than implementing technology to empower the business.
Leading IT teams are shifting to a product-centric delivery, moving past technology silos to streamline offerings. The transition, grounded in a DevOps mentality, aligns IT and business, healing a long-tumultuous relationship.
The goal is "building the new digital culture in a secure way for the benefit of [the] business," Rowsell-Jones said. While caution seems alluring, CIOs also need to leverage disruptive technology. AI adoption has increased 270% since 2015, and if CIOs aren't considering the technology, they could fall behind.
CIOs are gaining power in the enterprise, tasked with guiding technology strategy that will create sustainable businesses. A big part of that is getting business value out of IT and contributing to the bottom line.
