Indian CIOs set their priorities straight, Digitalization takes precedence over Conventional Technologies

Chief information officers in India have learnt what their priorities are when it comes to their commitment to digital business, according to Gartner, Inc. Gartner’s annual global survey of CIOs found that average IT budgets in India are expected to grow 10.7 percent in 2017, nearly five times faster than the overall global average of a 2.2 percent increase. “India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, and Indian CEOs are looking to their CIOs to deliver on the promise of digitalization,” said Partha Iyengar, vice president and Gartner Fellow. “Indian CIOs are being given the budgets to invest in digitalization and the game-changing technologies that support it.”

However, India is struggling with significant IT talent gaps. The rapid growth in the IT budget poses an extra challenge for Indian CIOs, who will have to be even more creative than their peers elsewhere in finding the skills they need to pursue digital transformation. On the one hand, leaders have committed to using digital technology for business advantage, but skills and resources topped the list of worries at 21 percent.

“Indian CIOs have the money to spend, but the availability of talent and skills necessary to implement key projects remains a significant challenge,” said Mr. Iyengar. “The lack of business analytics skills is a global concern, and one that Indian CIOs feel keenly with 35 percent of respondents listing it as a top talent concern. Twenty-five percent of Indian respondents list overall lack of skills as a top-three talent gap, compared with 12 percent of overall respondents. A quarter of Indian CIOs also reported a talent gap in digital business and marketing while 19 percent cited lack of specific technical skills.”

The survey also reveals that almost 9 out of 10 Indian CIOs stress support for digital business over optimizing IT costs, and almost 80 percent say they emphasize innovation over daily operations. Indian CIOs plan to accelerate their funding of digitalization by 2018 to 35 percent of total IT budget compared to a predicted 43 percent among top performers.