State of the CIO 2023

1. State of the CIO 2023
Insight into the CIO role and their technology
and business initiatives for the upcoming year
1

2. Purpose and methodology
Source: State of the CIO, 2023
CIO’s 22nd annual State
of the CIO survey was
conducted with the
objective of understanding
how the role of the CIO
continues to evolve in
today’s business climate
and to help define the CIO
agenda for 2023. This
definitive benchmarking
survey outlines the tech
and business initiatives IT
leaders expect to focus on
in the coming year, where
they expect to be more
involved.
Total respondents: 1,038
Heads of IT: 837 LOB: 201
Audience base
CIO Audience
Job titles
CIO 35%
Director/Managing Director 34%
CTO 18%
EVP, SVP, VP 10%
President, Owner, Partner 9%
CEO 7%
CDO 5%
Other 10%
Region
North America 44%
EMEA 24%
APAC 30%
Top represented industries
Manufacturing 15%
High Tech 14%
Financial Services 12%
Services 11%
Government and nonprofits 10%
Healthcare 8%
Retail, wholesale and distribution 6%
Education 4%
Company size
(number of employees)
5,000+ 23%
1,000-4,999 22%
100-999 33%
Less than 100 21%
Function
Admin/Corp. Mgmt. 24%
Operations 23%
Marketing 16%
Sales 13%
Finance/Accounting 9%
Human Resources 9%
Engineering/R&D 4%
2

3. Technology budgets continue to see growth
Q: Do you expect your organization’s overall IT budget to increase, decrease or remain the same in 2023?
Source: State of the CIO, 2023
56%
9%
35%
Remain the same
Increase
Budget
expectations
Decrease
3

4. Continue to focus on security and
ops performance
Q: Which of the following activities best characterize your focus and how you spend your time in your current role?
15%
19%
19%
21%
24%
25%
25%
26%
28%
28%
31%
35%
38%
40%
47%
Developing new go-to-market strategies & technologies
Studying market trends/customer needs to identify commercial opportunities
Identifying opportunities for competitive differentiation
Developing and refining business strategy
Driving business innovation
Negotiating with IT vendors
Redesigning business processes
Managing IT crises
Cost control/expense management
Leading change efforts
Cultivating the IT/business partnership
Modernizing infrastructure and applications
Aligning IT initiatives with business goals
Improving IT operations/systems performance
Security management
Source: State of the CIO, 2023 4

5. CIO role elevation and visibility due to the economy
Q: Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements (NET of strongly agree/agree somewhat)
Source: State of the CIO, 2023
of heads of IT say that the CIO role was
elevated due to the current state of the
economy and this visibility within the
organization is expected to continue
77%
68% of their LOB counterparts agree
5

6. Business initiatives expected to drive IT investments
Q: In 2023, which of the following business initiatives will be most significant in driving IT investments at your organization
9%
11%
14%
16%
17%
18%
19%
19%
20%
22%
25%
27%
36%
38%
44%
45%
Creating a more diverse and inclusive company culture
Adhering to environmental social, and governance (ESG) standards
Monetizing company data
Meeting compliance requirements (GDPR, etc.)
Improving talent acquisition/retention
Enhancing hybrid work technologies
Improving/optimizing the employee experience
Developing new digital revenue streams
Increasing topline revenue for the business
New product development
Increasing employee productivity
Improving profitability
Improving the customer experience
Transforming existing business processes (i.e. automation, integration)
Increasing cybersecurity protections
Increasing operational efficiency
Source: State of the CIO, 2023 6

7. Q: Please indicate your level of agreement with the following statements regarding Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) standards in your IT organization:
Source: State of the CIO, 2023
59%
of CIOs agree that
aligning their business
with ESG standards is
influencing
technology buying
plans for 2023
64%
of CIOs agree they’re
tasked with adhering to
ESG standards and are
involved in the selection
of clean information
technology
63%
of CIOs say that
adhering to ESG
standards is an
important buying
criterion when
reviewing technology
vendors/partners
7

8. Tech initiatives driving IT investments in 2023
Q. In 2023, which of the following technology initiatives will drive the most IT investment at your organization?
17%
17%
18%
19%
19%
20%
21%
23%
24%
26%
28%
34%
38%
Network modernization (SD-WAN, wireless, 5G, etc.)
Infrastructure consolidation/virtualization
Collaboration tools & platforms
Cloud management
Business process management/robotic process automation (RPA)
IT/OT (operational technology) convergence
Cloud migration (moving apps/data to public cloud)
Cloud infrastructure (private or hybrid)
Customer experience technologies
Machine learning/artificial intelligence (AI)
Application/legacy systems modernization
Data/business analytics
Security/risk management
State of the CIO, 2023 8

9. Anticipating new hires in these tech areas
Q: In which technology-related areas do you anticipate your organization will hire over the next 6-12 months?
19%
19%
20%
24%
25%
26%
26%
27%
29%
30%
30%
39%
Enterprise architecture
Compliance
Risk management
DevOps/DevSecOps/agile processes
Enterprise software (ERP, CRM, etc.)
Software engineering
Artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning
Cloud services/integration
Cloud architecture
Data science/analytics
Application development
Cybersecurity
Source: State of the CIO, 2023 9

10. 10
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