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Gartner: Only 48% of Digital Initiatives Meet or Exceed Their Business Outcome Targets

On average, only 48% of digital initiatives enterprise-wide meet or exceed their business outcome targets according to Gartner, Inc.'s annual global survey of more than 3,100 CIOs and technology executives, and more than 1,100 executive leaders outside of IT (CxOs).

A small cohort of CIOs and CxOs, known as the "Digital Vanguard," has the highest achievement rate, where 71% of their digital initiatives meet or exceed outcome targets.

"This digital vanguard distinguishes themselves from the rest of CIOs and CxOs because they co-own digital delivery," said Raf Gelders, VP, Research at Gartner. "CIOs and CxOs are equally responsible, accountable and involved in delivering the digital solutions their enterprises need. This is a radical departure from the traditional paradigm of IT delivery and business 'project sponsorship' that predominates in most enterprises."

Digital vanguard CxOs distinguish themselves from other CxOs because they dedicate more of their personal time and resources to digital delivery. They co-own digital delivery end to end with their CIOs, as well as dedicate 35% of their business area staff to do technology work (vs 21% of the rest of CxOs). They also work very closely with IT, meeting with their CIOs four times more often than the rest of CxOs.

"Behind every digital vanguard CxO, a digital vanguard CIO is guiding and enabling CxOs and their teams to co-lead and co-build digital delivery with IT," said Jaime Capella, Distinguished VP, Research at Gartner. "Digital vanguard CIOs nurture their peers to become digital vanguard CxOs. Those CIOs make it easier for their CxOs to lead digital with them and for business area staff to build digital solutions together with IT.

"CIOs' success now depends on their CxOs' success," continued Capella. "To succeed at the next phase of digital initiatives, CIOs need their CxOs to work together and co-lead with them. So their fortunes are intertwined: one cannot succeed without the other."

CIOs Seek Compelling, Easy-to-Use Platforms for All Technologists

Over 80% of CIOs polled in the survey said they expect to increase their investments in 2025 in strong foundational capabilities and technologies such as cybersecurity, AI/GenAI, business intelligence and data analytics, or integration technologies/APIs.

"Digital vanguard CIOs do not invest in these technologies to be used by their IT staff only. They also make them easy to use for potential or actual technologists outside of IT," said Gelders. "On average, there is 26% of business/corporate area staff outside of IT dedicated to building, implementing or managing technology. Many of these technologies naturally lend themselves to easing the burden of work enterprise-wide, accelerating time-to-market and time-to-value, and fostering the accountability of CxOs."

At the other end of the spectrum, 43% of CIOs said they expect to decrease their investment in legacy infrastructure and data center technologies. This is a trend that has become more common in recent years, mainly due to migrating to cloud-based solutions. That compares with 33% who said they expect to increase it, which can be attributed, in part, to those organizations that acquired on-premise infrastructure to experiment and produce GenAI solutions.

CIOs Look to Develop Tech and Digital Leadership Skills for All Technologists Across the Enterprise

Only 16% of CIOs surveyed prioritize building a technology workforce enterprise-wide (beyond their own IT departments) in 2025. That will limit the enterprise's ability to get the most from their digital investments. It condemns them to perpetuate the low number (48%) of digital initiatives that meet or exceed their business outcome targets.

Furthermore, just 18% of CIOs said they will prioritize sharing technology leadership with other business areas, a paramount must-have to grow the digital vanguard.

"Digital vanguard CIOs plan the needs of digital skills not just for IT staff but also for all potential and actual technologists across the enterprise," said Gelders.

Two-thirds of digital vanguard CIOs (vs 22% of the rest of CIOs) go beyond that and help business areas forecast their own needs of digital skills among business staff.

Methodology: The 2025 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey gathered data from 3,186 CIOs and technology executives in 88 countries and all major industries, representing approximately $17.6 trillion in revenue/public-sector budgets and $351 billion in IT spending. This survey was supplemented with insights from 1,126 executive leaders outside of IT (CXOs).

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Gartner: Only 48% of Digital Initiatives Meet or Exceed Their Business Outcome Targets

On average, only 48% of digital initiatives enterprise-wide meet or exceed their business outcome targets according to Gartner, Inc.'s annual global survey of more than 3,100 CIOs and technology executives, and more than 1,100 executive leaders outside of IT (CxOs).

A small cohort of CIOs and CxOs, known as the "Digital Vanguard," has the highest achievement rate, where 71% of their digital initiatives meet or exceed outcome targets.

"This digital vanguard distinguishes themselves from the rest of CIOs and CxOs because they co-own digital delivery," said Raf Gelders, VP, Research at Gartner. "CIOs and CxOs are equally responsible, accountable and involved in delivering the digital solutions their enterprises need. This is a radical departure from the traditional paradigm of IT delivery and business 'project sponsorship' that predominates in most enterprises."

Digital vanguard CxOs distinguish themselves from other CxOs because they dedicate more of their personal time and resources to digital delivery. They co-own digital delivery end to end with their CIOs, as well as dedicate 35% of their business area staff to do technology work (vs 21% of the rest of CxOs). They also work very closely with IT, meeting with their CIOs four times more often than the rest of CxOs.

"Behind every digital vanguard CxO, a digital vanguard CIO is guiding and enabling CxOs and their teams to co-lead and co-build digital delivery with IT," said Jaime Capella, Distinguished VP, Research at Gartner. "Digital vanguard CIOs nurture their peers to become digital vanguard CxOs. Those CIOs make it easier for their CxOs to lead digital with them and for business area staff to build digital solutions together with IT.

"CIOs' success now depends on their CxOs' success," continued Capella. "To succeed at the next phase of digital initiatives, CIOs need their CxOs to work together and co-lead with them. So their fortunes are intertwined: one cannot succeed without the other."

CIOs Seek Compelling, Easy-to-Use Platforms for All Technologists

Over 80% of CIOs polled in the survey said they expect to increase their investments in 2025 in strong foundational capabilities and technologies such as cybersecurity, AI/GenAI, business intelligence and data analytics, or integration technologies/APIs.

"Digital vanguard CIOs do not invest in these technologies to be used by their IT staff only. They also make them easy to use for potential or actual technologists outside of IT," said Gelders. "On average, there is 26% of business/corporate area staff outside of IT dedicated to building, implementing or managing technology. Many of these technologies naturally lend themselves to easing the burden of work enterprise-wide, accelerating time-to-market and time-to-value, and fostering the accountability of CxOs."

At the other end of the spectrum, 43% of CIOs said they expect to decrease their investment in legacy infrastructure and data center technologies. This is a trend that has become more common in recent years, mainly due to migrating to cloud-based solutions. That compares with 33% who said they expect to increase it, which can be attributed, in part, to those organizations that acquired on-premise infrastructure to experiment and produce GenAI solutions.

CIOs Look to Develop Tech and Digital Leadership Skills for All Technologists Across the Enterprise

Only 16% of CIOs surveyed prioritize building a technology workforce enterprise-wide (beyond their own IT departments) in 2025. That will limit the enterprise's ability to get the most from their digital investments. It condemns them to perpetuate the low number (48%) of digital initiatives that meet or exceed their business outcome targets.

Furthermore, just 18% of CIOs said they will prioritize sharing technology leadership with other business areas, a paramount must-have to grow the digital vanguard.

"Digital vanguard CIOs plan the needs of digital skills not just for IT staff but also for all potential and actual technologists across the enterprise," said Gelders.

Two-thirds of digital vanguard CIOs (vs 22% of the rest of CIOs) go beyond that and help business areas forecast their own needs of digital skills among business staff.

Methodology: The 2025 Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey gathered data from 3,186 CIOs and technology executives in 88 countries and all major industries, representing approximately $17.6 trillion in revenue/public-sector budgets and $351 billion in IT spending. This survey was supplemented with insights from 1,126 executive leaders outside of IT (CXOs).

Hot Topics

The Latest

As businesses increasingly rely on high-performance applications to deliver seamless user experiences, the demand for fast, reliable, and scalable data storage systems has never been greater. Redis — an open-source, in-memory data structure store — has emerged as a popular choice for use cases ranging from caching to real-time analytics. But with great performance comes the need for vigilant monitoring ...

Kubernetes was not initially designed with AI's vast resource variability in mind, and the rapid rise of AI has exposed Kubernetes limitations, particularly when it comes to cost and resource efficiency. Indeed, AI workloads differ from traditional applications in that they require a staggering amount and variety of compute resources, and their consumption is far less consistent than traditional workloads ... Considering the speed of AI innovation, teams cannot afford to be bogged down by these constant infrastructure concerns. A solution is needed ...

AI is the catalyst for significant investment in data teams as enterprises require higher-quality data to power their AI applications, according to the State of Analytics Engineering Report from dbt Labs ...

Misaligned architecture can lead to business consequences, with 93% of respondents reporting negative outcomes such as service disruptions, high operational costs and security challenges ...

A Gartner analyst recently suggested that GenAI tools could create 25% time savings for network operational teams. Where might these time savings come from? How are GenAI tools helping NetOps teams today, and what other tasks might they take on in the future as models continue improving? In general, these savings come from automating or streamlining manual NetOps tasks ...

IT and line-of-business teams are increasingly aligned in their efforts to close the data gap and drive greater collaboration to alleviate IT bottlenecks and offload growing demands on IT teams, according to The 2025 Automation Benchmark Report: Insights from IT Leaders on Enterprise Automation & the Future of AI-Driven Businesses from Jitterbit ...

A large majority (86%) of data management and AI decision makers cite protecting data privacy as a top concern, with 76% of respondents citing ROI on data privacy and AI initiatives across their organization, according to a new Harris Poll from Collibra ...

According to Gartner, Inc. the following six trends will shape the future of cloud over the next four years, ultimately resulting in new ways of working that are digital in nature and transformative in impact ...

2020 was the equivalent of a wedding with a top-shelf open bar. As businesses scrambled to adjust to remote work, digital transformation accelerated at breakneck speed. New software categories emerged overnight. Tech stacks ballooned with all sorts of SaaS apps solving ALL the problems — often with little oversight or long-term integration planning, and yes frequently a lot of duplicated functionality ... But now the music's faded. The lights are on. Everyone from the CIO to the CFO is checking the bill. Welcome to the Great SaaS Hangover ...

Regardless of OpenShift being a scalable and flexible software, it can be a pain to monitor since complete visibility into the underlying operations is not guaranteed ... To effectively monitor an OpenShift environment, IT administrators should focus on these five key elements and their associated metrics ...