Digital business is top priority
AFRICAN companies are forecast to increase their information technology (IT) budgets next year as digital emerges as the leading business priority for local chief information officers (CIOs).
According to the annual Gartner 2019 CIO Agenda, whose findings were released in Cape Town, CIOs in the continent expect their enterprise IT budget to increase 4.3% on average next year.
This is up from an average of 3.1% increase from the past year.
CIOs in Africa expect to spend the highest amount of new or additional funding next year on business intelligence and analytics (57% of respondents), cyber-security (46%) and digital business initiatives (39%).
CIOs (30%) have ranked digital as the leading business priority.
Business growth (23% of CIOs) was named second business priority.
Gartner research director Tomas Nielsen said the rankings indicated local CIOs were making digital an integral part of their business strategy and planning.
“They clearly want digital-fuelled growth in 2019,” he said at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo. Digital is not ‘nice’ to have. It’s mandatory. The investment in digital is increasing, and digital continues to gain currency across the economy in Africa,” Nielsen added.
Among other major findings, while cyber-security is the top digital technology deployment among CIOs in Africa, disruptive technologies are reaching a tipping point.
Nielsen said the journey into digitalisation would accelerate next year. The 2019 Gartner CIO Agenda Survey gathered data from more than 3 000 CIO respondents in 89 countries and all major industries, representing about $15 trillion (R215 trillion) in revenue/ public sector budgets and $284 billion in IT spending. – CAJ News