95% CIOs Expect Their Roles To Change Due To Digital Transformation: 2018 CIO Survey

As per the recent survey by Gartner, around 95% of CIOs expected their job and role in an organization to change, because of digital transformation. The 2018 CIO Survey by Gartner reveals that in the era of digitalization, the CIOs will have to remix the job they do, so that they can help the organization to shift and transform into digital business. Gartner surveyed 3160 CIOs across 98 countries, representing nearly $13 trillion in revenue and $277 billion in IT spending. Of 3160 CIOs, 461 were working in government organizations, divided into national or federal, regional, local, defense and intelligence. 93% of CIOs working at prominent organizations, and 78% worldwide, said that their organizations were adaptable and open-to-change. It indicates that CIOs can’t wait for long to change their roles, and transform the organization. How will role of CIOs change in 2018? The CIOs role in 2018 will change from delivery executive to business executive, without having a blueprint to follow. They will have to accelerate and converge technology trends, shift business expectations and attain a broader set of new organizational objectives. The delivery will still be their responsibility, but some of their old roles will need to be transformed into new ones. Top objectives of CIOs in 2018 58% of CIOs said that business growth is their top priority. The other CIO priorities included digital transformation (17%), profit improvement (10%), innovation (10%), customer focus (9%), merger & acquisition (7%), and cost optimization (6%). To achieve these business objectives, CIOs need to spend more time on executive leadership. The survey revealed that CIOs’ time spent on leadership increased by two days per month, as compared to that of three years ago. Among government organizations, digital transformation (18%) was first priority, followed by security (13%), governance and compliance (12%), and technology initiatives (11%). When asked which technology was the most important for an organization to achieve its mission, 26% of respondents voted Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics. Digital marketing, cloud services, mobility, IoT, CRM, AI, and automation were the other top technologies expected to help businesses differentiate from their competitors. But government CIOs mentioned cloud services as top technology, and didn’t include AI and IoT in their top 10 priorities. It’s clear that CIOs need to implement new technologies into their business strategies. However, the implementation of new technologies needs new skills and expertise. AI, IoT and Digital Security were the most challenging technologies to implement, according to the respondents who had already done it. “Digitalization has created a larger capacity for change in many IT organizations, so now is a great time to start your role transition if you have not already. The message is loud and clear: To continue to effect digital transformation, CIOs will have to transform themselves,” stated Gartner. Also read: Emotion AI to read emotional state of mobile device users by 2022 Gartner will provide more analysis on data and analytics leadership trends at Gartner Data & Analytics Summit 2018, in Sydney, Grapevine, Texas, London, Sao Paulo, Brazil, Mumbai and Tokyo.