Firms with strong, collaborative relationships between the chief information officer (CIO), IT department and other C-suite executives are four times likely to be top performing businesses when compared to their peers.
The PwC Digital IQ survey revealed that firms with the strongest Digital IQ useinformation technology to modify business models and develop new strategies.
"Digital IQ is about the CIO orchestrating rather than owning conversations," said PwC principal chief technologist Chris Curran.
"Social media, mobile channels and data analytics, along with the cloud, are making new business and operating models possible.
"Because enterprise responsibility lives across the C-suite for these issues, collaborative digital conversations are critical to bring it all together and evaluate and adopt these technologies."
These types of firms will be more aggressive in adopting mobile and social technologies for employees and customers as well as having clear approaches to organising, managing and measuring innovation.
PwC principal US and Global Technology Consulting leader Tom DeGarmo said firms with higher Digital IQs think differently about their IT strategy, opportunities, and risks.
"Organizations with collaborative C-suite relationships have a shared understanding of corporate strategy between IT and business leaders and understand costs to implement that strategy," DeGarmo said.
PwC principal John Sviokla said: "Top performers view their CEO as a champion of IT who remains actively involved from strategy through execution and more often view capital IT investments as a means to support growth initiatives and leverage emerging technologies."
