CIO Agenda

The leadership, organisational and technology priorities CIOs must address in 2023

4 Actions to Ensure Your Tech Investments Pay Digital Dividends

The Gartner CIO survey, which surveys more than 2,000 IT executives on current business practices, shows that although CIOs and other technology executives are tasked with delivering on increased digital technology investments, few are supplying the digital dividends senior leadership expects.

Download the 2023 CIO Agenda eBook to:

  • discover the four actions you can take to accelerate impact;
  • understand where you are and how to move forward; and
  • develop an action plan to meet CEO expectations.

Download the 2023 CIO Agenda

Accelerate your impact and deliver the digital dividends that your senior leadership expects

By clicking the "Continue" button, you are agreeing to the Gartner Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Contact Information

All fields are required.

  • Step 2 of 3

    By clicking the "Continue" button, you are agreeing to the Gartner Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    Company/Organization Information

    All fields are required.

    Optional
  • Step 3 of 3

    By clicking the "Submit" button, you are agreeing to the Gartner Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    Composable Thinking Actions: 56% of high composability organisations promote a high-trust, empowering culture.

    Identify desired impacts and prioritise supporting initiatives

    Objectives of digital investments may have changed with recent economic conditions, so it is important to understand what current types of financial impact the CEO needs you to deliver on and what time frame is expected.

    Once you have prioritised initiatives to support those impacts, develop relationships with key partners across the business and work together to overcome people and organisational issues.

    Composable Thinking Actions: 56% of high composability organisations promote a high-trust, empowering culture.

    Assess progress and communicate interdependencies

    Metrics are key to measuring success, but make sure yours are aligned with the goals of the executive team. You will also need to demonstrate the interdependencies across digital initiatives that will collectively impact financial performance.

    A metrics hierarchy that allows you to organise and measure around business outcomes will reveal the critical performance contributions across teams and initiatives.

    Composable Business Architecture Actions: 64% of highly composable organisations design business and technology in parallel
    Composable Technologies Actions: 60% of highly composable organisations adopt iterative development as a default

    Align SMEs, business technologists and IT experts

    Fusion teams made up of IT and business-focussed experts will accelerate time to value and ensure desired business outcomes are met.

    Look to contribute key IT talent to these business-led teams to better understand capabilities, data and technologies required for initiatives. Successful collaboration across IT and business teams will pave the way for future reciprocity and ensure alignment of business and technology objectives.

    Composable Technologies Actions: 60% of highly composable organisations adopt iterative development as a default

    Tap uncommon sources to handle lower priority initiatives

    As your fusion teams tackle initiatives designed to drive higher financial impact to the business, you will still need digital talent to focus on other internal projects. Think outside the box when recruiting to uncover new sources of talent.

    Interns, gig workers and students may initially need extra time and supervision to get up to speed, but may also cost much less. Consider offering experience, exposure, training or pay based on the value of the deliverable.

    Composable Technologies Actions: 60% of highly composable organisations adopt iterative development as a default
    Composable Technologies Actions: 60% of highly composable organisations adopt iterative development as a default

    With digital business accelerating, IT leaders must identify the enterprise-wide business outcomes their CEO wants, prioritise digital initiatives that support them, and find c-suite partners to lead them.

    Daniel Sanchez Reina

    VP Analyst, Gartner
    Upcoming Webinar

    4 Steps to Deliver on Digital Investments

    Explore the finding of the 2023 Gartner CIO Agenda and discover how leading CIOs can radically re-frame their organisation’s value proposition and how their technology departments create value.

    Frequently asked questions about the Gartner CIO Agenda

    The 2023 CIO Agenda analyses data from the 2023 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey and supplements it with interviews from several CIOs (or equivalents) who had interesting stories about their enterprise’s transition to business composability.

    The 2023 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive survey was conducted online from May 2022 through July 2022 among Gartner Executive Programs members and other CIOs. Qualified respondents are either the most senior IT leaders (CIOs) for their overall organisation or a part of their organisation (for example, a business unit or region).

    The survey gathered data from 2,387 CIO respondents in 85 countries and all major industries, representing approximately $9 trillion in revenue/public sector budgets and $198 billion in IT spending.

    The survey was developed collaboratively by a team of Gartner analysts and was reviewed, tested, and administered by Gartner’s Research Data and Analytics team.

    Use this research to assess how your organisation is doing in terms of business composability and the three key areas in which to focus. You can also learn how your peers are ranking and why business composability is key to a successful organisation.

    For the Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Agenda 2022, Gartner defines a high composability cohort (n = 150) as respondents that meet all three of these criteria:

    • Practise composable thinking widely (6) or extensively (7) throughout the enterprise.
    • Practise composable business architecture widely (6) or extensively (7) throughout the enterprise.
    • Use composable technology widely (6) or extensively (7) throughout the enterprise.

    Gartner defines a low composability cohort (n = 316) as respondents whose practice of business composability in all three domains is not at all (1), rarely (2) or somewhat (3).

    The rest of the organisations are considered moderate business composability.

    CIOs and technology executives must prepare to operate in a more disruptive business environment by making their enterprises more composable. CIOs are in a great position to lead the charge and advance composable thinking, business architecture, and technology at the same time. Plans should include steps in the three domains that reinforce each other.

    Business composability combines mindset, practices, and tools to accelerate digital business. Gartner’s primary research found some enterprises used composability to beat competitors during the pandemic.

    IT budgets are expected to grow at the fastest rate in over 10 years as survey respondents reported an average growth of 3.6% in the overall IT budget for 2023.

    The increase in IT budget means CIOs and technology executives have a choice in where to invest. Without big deficits to remedy elsewhere, they can afford to invest in composability, especially with regard to developers and business architects who can design in a composable manner as well as invest in packaged business capabilities

    1. Modularity: partitioning a domain into managed components—to scale and control change
    2. Autonomy: minimising dependence of components on each other—to maintain the integrity of change
    3. Orchestration: prescribing and negotiating interactions between components—to enable recomposition to form new processes
    4. Discovery: ability to discover, understand and design new opportunities using existing components to guide, track, and secure change

    The CIO Agenda is just the beginning...

    CIOs today are facing unprecedented challenges to improve business outcomes, transform business models, modernise technology and enhance customer experience. Gartner supports CIOs and technology leaders by providing actionable, objective insights that enable faster, smarter decisions and stronger performance.

    Gartner is a trusted advisor and an objective resource for more than 15,000 enterprises in 100+ countries.

    Find out more about how we can help you achieve your mission-critical priorities.