To succeed in digital business, CIOs need to be ‘bimodal’, according to Gartner.
This means they need to be both ‘rock solid’ and fluid if they want to develop the speed and agility their organisation needs to meet oncoming digital challenges.
But how does Gartner expect CIOs to become fluid in a space where IT spending is sometimes restricted? Tina Nunno, Gartner VP, said: "Part of the beauty of digital leadership is that it’s a team sport. Leaders who are doing are focused on orchestrating a team.
"This beauty in digital leadership means that you get to spend other department’s money. You’re not restricted to the IT department.
Peter Sondergaard, SVP at Gartner, said: "CIOs can’t transform their old IT organisation into a digital start-up, but they can turn it into a bi-modal IT organisation.
"45% of CIOs state they currently have a fast mode of operation, and we predict that 75% of IT organisations will be bi-modal in some way by 2017."
Released at the Gartner Symposium in Barcelona today, the findings explored how CIOs can become digital leaders whilst undergoing a dramatic shift in power of IT spending.
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Gartner forecasts that EMEA IT spending will reach $1.3bn in 2015, a 2.6% increase from this year. 38% of global IT spending is currently managed outside of the IT department, with most money being spent on digital natives. By 2017, this figure is forecast to reach 50%.
"Digital start-ups sit inside your organisation, in your marketing department, in HR, in logistics and in sales," said Sondergaard.
"As IT leaders, you must design, resource, and deploy for a world that’s digital first. In this new model, every business unit is a technology start-up. Now is your opportunity to create that team. Partner with the digital start-ups inside your organisation and prove that you can move fast too. Embrace the outside change."
