Only 48 Percent of Digital Initiatives Are Successful

On average, only 48% of digital initiatives meet or exceed business outcome targets, according to Gartner. A cohort of CIOs and CxOs, known as the “Digital Vanguard,” has the highest achievement rate, where 71% of their digital initiatives meet or exceed outcome targets.

“This digital vanguard distinguishes themselves from the rest of CIOs and CxOs because they co-own digital delivery,” said Raf Gelders, Vice President for Research at Gartner. “CIOs and CxOs are equally responsible, accountable, and involved in delivering the digital solutions their enterprises need. This is a radical departure from the traditional paradigm of IT delivery and business ‘project sponsorship’ that predominates in most enterprises.”

“Behind every digital vanguard CxO, a digital vanguard CIO is guiding and enabling CxOs and their teams to co-lead and co-build digital delivery with IT,” said Daniel Sanchez-Reina, VP Analyst at Gartner. “Digital vanguard CIOs nurture their peers to become digital vanguard CxOs. Those CIOs make it easier for their CxOs to lead digital with them and for business area staff to build digital solutions together with IT. CIOs' success now depends on their CxOs’ success. To succeed in the next phase of digital initiatives, CIOs need their CxOs to work together and co-lead with them. So their fortunes are intertwined: one cannot succeed without the other.”

Over 80% of EMEA CIOs polled said they expect to increase their investments in cybersecurity, AI/GenAI, and business intelligence and data analytics in 2025. “Digital vanguard CIOs do not invest in these technologies to be used by their IT staff only. They also make them easy to use for potential or actual technologists outside of IT,” said Gelders. “On average, there is 26% of business/corporate area staff outside of IT dedicated to building, implementing, or managing technology. Many of these technologies naturally lend themselves to easing the burden of work enterprise-wide, accelerating time-to-market and time-to-value, and fostering the accountability of CxOs.”

At the other end of the spectrum, 43% of EMEA CIOs said they expect to decrease their investment in legacy infrastructure and data center technologies. This is a trend that has become more common in recent years, mainly due to migrating to cloud-based solutions. That compares with 33% who said they expect to increase it, which can be attributed, in part, to those organizations that acquired on-premise infrastructure to experiment and produce GenAI solutions.

Only 14% of EMEA CIOs surveyed prioritize building a technology workforce enterprise-wide (beyond their own IT departments) in 2025. That will limit the enterprise’s ability to get the most from its digital investments. It condemns them to perpetuate the low number (48%) of digital initiatives that meet or exceed their business outcome targets. Furthermore, just 19% of EMEA CIOs said they would prioritize sharing technology leadership with other business areas, a paramount must-have to grow the digital vanguard.

“To become a digital vanguard, CIOs in EMEA need to prioritize four areas – making digital platforms easy for the workforce to build digital solutions; teaching them the interdependencies between technology and business; helping business leaders become innovation leaders at digital; and expanding digital skills beyond the IT department,” said Sanchez-Reina.