Gartner Says Financial Services CIOs Must Align Technology Investment with Business Leader Priorities to Navigate Coronavirus Recovery
The Gartner 2020 Financial Services COVID-19 Pulse Survey* asked financial services business leaders and CIOs what they considered to be strengths and weaknesses as they responded to the crisis. Over half of business leaders indicated that technology infrastructure was a weakness, compared with just 20% of financial services CIOs.
“This disconnect will be an ongoing, perhaps even growing, challenge if left unaddressed,” said Ms. Sturgill. “CIOs must take immediate action to understand why business leaders felt that technology was a weakness. Their answers can provide the path forward for which new technology investments need to be prioritized.”
Sixty-five percent of financial services CIOs surveyed plan to increase spending on infrastructure technologies such as APIs, microservices, and cloud in the coming year, and over half plan to invest in automation that reduces the need for high-touch processes and contributes to cost optimization. “Both business leaders and CIOs demonstrate a shared interest in automation technologies, so it’s clear that this area will be a key priority for financial services organizations post-COVID-19,” said Ms. Sturgill.
In the short-term, Gartner recommends CIOs create a priority map that draws a clear line between business and IT goals and identifies how such technologies will help achieve each goal. In the long-term, financial services CIOs can proactively prevent future gaps by engaging business partners in prioritization sessions early and often and by clearly articulating which investments will make them more resilient as an organization.
“Fixing what’s broken will always be a near term priority for CIOs but planning ahead, while harder in uncertain times, is critical to securing the future success of the organization. CIOs should create a structure to gather business imperatives on a regular basis, both through direct conversation with business leaders and line-of-business stakeholders and through coordinated planning sessions and documents,” said Ms. Sturgill.
Additional analysis on CIO leadership and how to reimagine your approach to technology and business strategy will be presented during Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo 2020, the world’s most important conferences for CIOs and other IT executives. IT executives rely on these conferences to gain insight into how their organizations can use IT to overcome business challenges and improve operational efficiency.
Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo include:
October 19-22| Americas| Virtual
October 27-29| APAC| Virtual
November 9-12| EMEA| Virtual
November 17-19| Japan| Virtual
November 23-25| India| Virtual
