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Survey: Technology-related change a high priority at C-level

Seventy-seven percent of survey respondents agreed that 'The digital world is creating new types and levels of risk for our business.'

April 28, 2015

The 2015 Gartner CEO and senior business executive survey finds that growth remains a top priority and technology-related change is viewed as the primary tool to achieve that growth in 2015 and 2016.

"Each year we ask CEOs to state their top five business priorities and this year growth was once again the top priority," said Mark Raskino, vice president and Gartner fellow.

The second-most-important category of business priority for 2015 and 2016 is technology related, Raskino said.

"When we examine the subtext of the responses, the purpose of CEOs' interest in technology becomes immediately obvious. Over half of the responses relate to revenue- and growth-related technology issues such as multichannel, e-commerce and m-commerce." 

When it comes to top technology investments over the next five years, 37 percent of respondents ranked customer engagement management as the leading technology-enabled business capability, followed by digital marketing at 32 percent and business analytics at 28 percent. 

With digital starting to fundamentally change the nature of industries, CEOs' security and risk concerns are rising. Seventy-seven percent of survey respondents agreed that "The digital world is creating new types and levels of risk for our business," and 65 percent felt that "Investment in risk management practices is not keeping up with new and higher levels of risk." 

"CEOs are right to be concerned," Raskino said. "As products and services become digital they add far greater utility for the customer but also far greater power for those dark forces who might usurp digital control. CEOs and CIOs should collaborate to jolt the executive team out of cyber-risk complacency." 

The Gartner CEO and senior business executive survey of 400 senior business leaders in user organizations worldwide was conducted in Q4 of 2014. Most responding organizations had annual revenue of $1 billion or more.