Digital transformation is topmost priority for CEOs: Report

Product improvement and technology are the biggest rising priorities for CEOs in 2017 and 42 per cent of them have begun digital business transformation, market research firm Gartner said on Monday. According to the survey, growth is the top business priority for 58 per cent of CEOs, which is up from 42 per cent in 2016, reports IANS.

"Forty seven percent of CEOs are being challenged by the board of directors to make progress in digital business, and 56 percent said that their digital improvements have already improved profits," said Mark Raskino, VP and Gartner Fellow in a statement.

Twenty two percent are taking digital to the core of their enterprise models. That's where the product, service and business model are being changed and the new digital capabilities that support those are becoming core competencies, Raskino added.

Although more CEOs have digital ambitions, the survey revealed that nearly half of CEOs have no digital transformation success metric.

“It is time for CEOs to scale up their digital business ambition and let CIOs help them set and track incisive success metrics and KPIs, to better direct business transformation.

CIOs should also help them toward more abstract thinking about the nature of digital business change and how to lead it," Raskino said. The survey was based on the study done on 388 CEOs by Gartner, Inc.