TRENDING
“In this new world, CIO success
is not based on what they
build, but the services that
they integrate.”
Andy Rowsell-Jones, Vice President
and Distinguished Analyst, Gartner
D
igitalisation and technological
innovation are changing the
nature of the job of the CIO.
Leaders are rapidly scaling their digital
businesses, making the remainder of
this year and 2018 a defining moment
for CIOs who don’t want to be left
behind. Gartner’s annual global survey
of CIOs showed that the CIO role is
transitioning from delivery executive to
business executive; from controlling cost
and engineering processes, to driving
revenue and exploiting data. of the business, such as innovation
management and talent development.
Gartner analysts presented the survey
findings during Gartner Symposium/
ITxpo. The Gartner 2018 CIO Agenda
Survey gathered data from a record
number of 3,160 CIO respondents in
98 countries and all major industries,
representing approximately $13 trillion
in revenue/public sector budgets and
$277 billion in IT spending. For the
purposes of the survey, respondents
were categorised as top, typical and
trailing performers in digitalisation. Respond to trends
The survey results show that 95% of
CIOs expect their jobs to change or be
remixed due to digitalisation. While
world-class IT delivery management is
a given, it will take up less and less of
the CIO’s time. Respondents believe
that the two biggest transformations
in the CIO role will be becoming a
change leader, followed by assuming
increased and broader responsibilities
and capabilities. Inevitably, the
job of CIO will extend beyond the
traditional delivery roles to other areas “In response to these concerns, the
survey found that digital security ranks
high on the CIO agenda as 35% of
respondents said they have already
invested and deployed some aspect
of digital security, and 36% are in the
process of planning to implement some
form of digital security,” said Rowsell-
Jones. “CIOs are also increasingly
adopting AI in their organisations.
Predominantly, AI is being used initially
either to boost the customer experience
or to fight fraud.”
www.intelligentcio.com
“The CIO’s role must grow and develop
as digital business spreads, and disruptive
technologies, including intelligent
machines and advanced analytics, reach
the masses,” said Andy Rowsell-Jones,
Vice President and Distinguished Analyst
at Gartner. “While delivery is still a part of
the job, much greater emphasis is being
placed on attaining a far broader set of
business objectives.”
The survey showed that a majority
of CIOs say that technology trends,
specifically cybersecurity and artificial
intelligence (AI), will significantly
change how they do their jobs in the
near future. Cybersecurity continues to
threaten the global landscape in 2018,
and 95% of CIOs surveyed said they
expect cybersecurity threats to increase
and impact their organisation.
CIOs surveyed rank AI, followed by
digital security and the Internet of
Things (IoT), as the most problematic
technologies to implement. Survey
respondents agree that the most
common pain point is the fact that
these technologies, particularly AI,
demand new skills, some of which can
be hard to find.
“There is a general notion with AI that
there will be job losses,” said Santhosh
Rao, Principal Research Analyst at
Gartner, “Whilst this will be the case
across some industries, in the long run AI
is going to be good because it’s going
to create new business models which
will in turn create new jobs. As these new
technologies emerge you will see the
existing task force reskilling themselves.”
The survey found that growth is the
No. 1 CIO priority for 2018, as reported
by 26% of CIOs. The use of digitised
products and services is expected to
drive new forms of revenue, business
value and engagement of customers
and citizens. The challenge for CIOs is
how to grow it to deliver economies of
scope and scale.
Rao believes CEOs are now seriously
banking on the CIO to look at digital
transformation as a new source of
revenue generation, “The technologies
that would enable this particular
transformation is what their investment is
going to be on. The CIOs are now looking
to invest primarily in five key areas: BI
analytics, cloud services, IoT, mobility
INTELLIGENTCIO
17