More than one in five CIOs and CTOs at enterprise companies (21 per cent) believe that their organisations’ road to digital transformation has been hit by a focus on short-term results over long-term strategy, according to new research.
Through a survey of 500 CIOs and CTOs across the retail, asset & wealth management, insurance, life sciences, and payments industries, at UK-based companies with £750million annual revenue, technology consultancy Crosstide has revealed that delayed investment in technology initiatives (44.8 per cent) is the main culprit behind this short-term thinking. Another 40.6 per cent blamed the pressure to demonstrate ROI.
It revealed that to improve their organisation’s ongoing digital transformation journey (aside from asking for more budget), CIOs and CTOs at enterprise companies also need:
- More empowerment to affect real change (23.4 per cent)
- More investment in AI (22.8 per cent)
- Stronger cybersecurity (21.2 per cent)
- Clearer direction from the CEO and/or board (20.8 per cent – rising to 24.0 per cent among CIOs/CTOs at organisations that are more advanced in their digital transformation journey).
The study also asked CIOs/CTOs what is currently making it challenging to fulfil their role as a leader internally in their organisation’s digital transformation journey.
The top challenge identified was legacy IT systems slowing progress (26.8 per cent), followed by the poor perception of previous transformation projects and their impact on the business, and an inability to properly prioritise what should be tackled first (both 25.6 per cent).
The latter two challenges were even more pronounced in organisations that were more advanced in their digital transformation journey.
Challenging times
“It has never been harder to be an enterprise CTO or CIO,” commented Richard Neish, CEO of Crosstide, in response to the findings. “Challenging economic and sociopolitical pressures are slowing the pace of technology transformation. Investments in critical technology initiatives are being delayed, long-term roadmaps are giving way to short-term priorities, and technology leaders lack the direction, funding and empowerment to drive the change agendas demanded of them.
“Enterprise technology leaders find themselves squarely in the middle of competing priorities, unproven technologies, financial sensitivity and the pressure to deliver on rising expectations with falling budgets.
“Good leaders are adopting new strategies to effect change, such as a test and learn mindset, building scalable foundations, measuring what matters and innovating how you work, not just what you build.”
