Every budget is becoming an IT budget: Gartner
23 Oct 2012
Technology spending outside of IT will rise to almost 90 per cent by the end of the decade, from the 20 per cent 12 years ago, with much of this change is being driven by the digitisation.
According to a study by research and analyst firm Gartner, "The `Nexus Of Forces' is leading this transformation," with the nexus being the convergence and mutual reinforcement of social, mobile, cloud and information patterns that drive new business scenarios.
Organisations are digitising segments of business, such as moving marketing spend from analogue to digital, or digitising the research and development budget. Secondly, organisations are digitising how they service their clients, in order to drive higher client retention. Thirdly, they are turning digitisation into new revenue streams.
According to Gartner, this is resulting in every budget becoming an IT budget.
To address these changes, organisations will create the role of a chief digital officer as part of the business unit leadership, which will become a new seat at the executive table. Gartner predicts that by 2015, 25 per cent of organisations will have a Chief Digital Officer.
''The chief digital officer will prove to be the most exciting strategic role in the decade ahead, and IT leaders have the opportunity to be the leaders who will define it,'' says David Willis, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. ''The chief digital officer plays in the place where the enterprise meets the customer, where the revenue is generated and the mission accomplished. They're in charge of the digital business strategy. That's a long way from running back office IT, and it's full of opportunity.''
