Most Cios Feel Need For Elevating Tech Funds To Drive Businesses: Grant Thornton Survey

According to a survey report by Grant Thornton Bharat and Dynamic CIO, the majority of chief information officers (75 percent) believe there is a need to increase the tech budget and driving businesses towards innovation and digital platforms such as artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and cloud.

The poll found that 31 percent of organizations are at the strategic stage of their digital transformation journey (roadmap for digital tech and investment in key technologies is ready), followed by 30 percent at the convergent level (targeted team has been set to guide the business on the strategic path towards transformation).

The two most important drivers of digital technology adoption are lower costs and more efficiency, as well as establishing a competitive advantage and allowing frontline operations, each making up 27 percent.

According to the paper, ‘Unlocking Innovation: Breaking Through Inertia,’ technology presents strong business opportunities while also contributing to the development in skill gaps. According to the poll, 32 percent of respondents identified a key impediment to the digital transformation process as a shortage of trained tech talent.

“To effectively deal with this problem, 70 percent of organizations are running periodic assessments to upskill talent to become future-ready. More than 50 percent of organizations were awarding various non-monetary benefits to their employees for bringing in new ideas, compared to 37 percent of organizations that were awarding monetary incentives,” it added.

Grant Thornton Bharat’s clients and markets leader (advisory services), Jaspreet Singh, stated, “The commitment of senior management tops the list as the main lever for change in digital projects. According to the survey, 80 percent of CIOs and tech leaders say they are driving their companies’ innovation efforts for sustainability and growth as they are responsible for high-powered initiatives.”

“With nearly three-quarters of organizations expecting to have an excellent innovative capability in the next two years, CIOs should develop a methodical approach to innovation that can lead to differentiated growth,” she added.

The study result, which was released at DynamicCIO’s flagship three-city summit and awards, Enterprise Innovation Summit (EIS) 2022, also indicated that 82 percent of respondent organizations want to build consistent methods for reinforcing change in digital transformation initiatives.

The Grant Thornton Bharat’s Innovation Study 2022 surveyed “numerous tech, innovation, and business leaders” to understand their approaches to changing digital space and innovation and developed clear recommendations for taking innovation, growth, and sustainability from ideation to industrialisation.

“With change happening at an accelerated pace in the digital era, the current market mantra is to digitize or die,” said Raman Shenoy, partner (dGTL) at Grant Thornton dGTL. “Companies are rushing to keep up to date in adopting new technologies to offer a competitive edge to their operations.”

According to the poll, 70 percent of change management efforts fail due to employee resistance and a lack of management support. It suggests that traditional change management strategies may not be the greatest match for the digital era.