CEOs are looking to deepen their understanding of digital business, Gartner reports-- as growth remains the priority of business leaders, the change and upgrading of company structure is the focus of CEOs and senior execs.
The finding comes from a Q4 2017 Gartner survey of 460 CEO and senior business executives from organisations with over $50 million in annual revenue. The analyst looked into the business issues of bosses, as well as "some" areas of technology agenda impact.
"Although growth remains the CEO's biggest priority, there was a significant fall in simple mentions of it this year, from 58 percent in 2017 to just 40 percent in 2018. This does not mean CEOs are less focused on growth, instead it shows that they are shifting perspective on how to obtain it," Gartner says. "The "corporate" category, which includes actions such as new strategy, corporate partnerships and mergers and acquisitions, has risen significantly to become the second-biggest priority."
IT is a high priority for CEOs, coming in the 3rd position after (simple) growth and corporate structural development. Survey respondents mention digital transformation in particular, and 42% of surveyed companies with an undergoing digital initiative say they are also in need of a culture change.
The majority (62%) of respondents also have a management initiative or transformative program to make business more digital. Of those organisations, 54% say the digital business objective is "transformational," while 46% point out "optimisation" as the initiative. Gartner also points out more CEOs are using "digital" more often, with 13.4% of respondents saying the word digital at least once, up from 2.1% in 2012.
Gartner points out an opportunity in CEOs wanting to invest further in IT, since 61% of survey respondents plan to increase spending in 2018, while 32% plan to make no changes in spending. Only 7% foresee spending cuts.
Go Gartner Survey Reveals That CEO Priorities Are Shifting to Embrace Digital Business
