Indian CIOs prioritise digitalisation over conventional technologies By Elets News Network - 20 March 2017

Indian CIO’s are increasingly focusing on digitalisation and competing successfully with global top performers to keep up with their commitment to digitise their businesses, according to a survey by American research and advisory company Gartner.

India is the fastest evolving economy and Indian CEO’s are counting on their CIO’s to keep up with the digitalisation commitments, said Partha Iyengar, Vice President and Gartner Fellow

The IT budgets in India are expected to rise by 10.7 percent in 2017, which is almost five times the overall global average of a 2.2 percent, said Gartner’s annual global CIO survey.

“Indian CIOs are being given the budgets to invest in digitalisation and the game-changing technologies that support it, but IT organisations remain immature in some respects and lack key resources. How Indian CIOs deal with the challenges caused by rapid business change and opportunities will help determine the future success of their enterprises,” said Iyengar.

In response to the question of growth in company’s revenue in 2017, Indian CIO’s foresee an average revenue growth of 12.6 percent, survey results suggested. This estimate is higher in comparison with the average of 4 per cent rise in company revenue among respondents.

The growth in the IT budget is challenging Indian CIO’s to become more creative than their peers to get the resources onboard, leveraging the digital transformation. Although leaders are incorporating digital technology for business advantage, skills and resources surpass the list of worries at 21 per cent.

The survey revealed that India is still struggling with a notable IT talent gap. “Indian CIOs have the money to spend, but the availability of talent and skills necessary to implement key projects remains a significant challenge,” said Iyengar.

According to Iyengar, Indian companies are adopting digital business religiously same as world’s other top-performing enterprises and like their top-performing counterparts. Indian CIOs list digital business and growth or market share as their enterprises’ top strategic business priorities through 2017.

Indian CIO’s back this up with 37 percent listing digital business as a top priority in comparison with 28 per cent of global top performers and 21 percent of all respondents, he added.

Business priorities have changed the focus of IT organisations in India. CIO’s in India mirror global top performers in response to IT organisations emphasis. About 9 out of 10 Indian CIOs support digital business over optimising IT costs and 80 percent say they focus on innovation over daily operations.

The inclination of Indian CIOs towards digitalisation involves trade-offs with risks. In the current scenario, digitalisation sums up to 23 per cent of the total organisation’s IT budget which is more than typical performers budget set at 18 per cent and below the top performers budget of 33 per cent.

CIOs in India have the vision to increase their digitalisation funding to 35 per cent of total IT budget in comparison with the calculated 43 percent amongst the top performers.

The wave of digitisation amongst CIOs in India will cost more conventional technologies. Infrastructure, data centres, information security and networking rank much lower among Indian CIOs than even the top performers, Iyengar added.

“This is likely an indication of the fact that Indian CIOs have focused on establishing the foundational capabilities over the past decade or so, and they are now concentrating on addressing the competitive challenges by aggressively investing in digital business,” said Iyengar.

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