Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 13 | Page 16

TRENDING HALF OF EMEA CIOs PARTICIPATING IN A ‘DIGITAL ECOSYSTEM’ CIOs in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) are clearly engaging with the era of digital business, with 50% participating in a digital ecosystem* and 65% contacting startups to acquire key digital technology capabilities and skills, according to Gartner’s annual CIO survey.´ G artner analysts presented these findings during Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which is taking place here through Thursday. The 2017 Gartner CIO Agenda Survey gathered data from 2,598 CIO respondents in 93 countries and all major industries, representing approximately $9.4 trillion in revenue/ public-sector budgets and $292 billion in IT spending. 753 CIO respondents were from the EMEA region. “EMEA CIOs expect their enterprise IT budget to increase 1.4%, on average, in 2017 — the smallest increase of any of the world’s regions — but, despite this, spending on digitalisation in EMEA 16 INTELLIGENTCIO is on the rise,” said Andy Rowsell-Jones, research vice president at Gartner. “EMEA CIOs are spending an average of 19% of their enterprise IT budget on digital initiatives, a figure set to increase to 29% in 2018. Their investments in digitalisation include key technologies for traditional digital marketing and digital sales channels, advanced analytics, the Internet of Things, enhanced digital security solutions, and business algorithms and learning machines.” A digital ecosystem rises “Digitalisation is maturing, and as it does, it’s likely that organisations which are investing in digital business will www.intelligentcio.com