The Top Trends for EMEA CIOs in 2023

Each year at Evanta, a Gartner company, we survey our C-level executive communities to discover their priorities, challenges, goals and intended investment areas through our Leadership Perspective Survey. The trends and insights we gather from this enable us to build world-class agendas for our programs – tailored to the specific needs and objectives of each community – and provide our executive members with strategic direction, insights into what may be coming next and much-needed validation from peers. 

So far this year, over 900 CIOs from our communities across the globe completed the survey, and there are some clear trends regarding their plans for 2023. Here, we explore the top priorities of Evanta’s EMEA CIO community – namely, their enterprise goals, their top functional priorities and planned investment areas which will enable them to achieve these objectives. The survey responses are from CIOs in Evanta communities in the UK and Ireland, France, and Italy, as well as the Benelux, Nordic, DACH and Middle East regions. 

These are the top three trends we observed for CIOs’ enterprise-level priorities:

1. Digital Business Acceleration is the top enterprise focus for EMEA CIOs this year, as it rose from #2 in 2022. This differs slightly from the rest of the global CIO communities, where it is the #2 priority behind Increasing Operational Efficiencies and Productivity.
2. Driving Growth has risen to the #3 spot - up from #4 in 2022. As the economy remains unstable, we’re seeing CIOs become evermore responsible for delivering true value to business.
3. Sustainability or ESG is the #4 most important enterprise priority for CIOs in 2023. Across our CIO communities, members have been speaking to us about this topic - including on our podcast last summer. We introduced it on the survey this year to gauge its importance, and it made it into the top 5.
    

These are the top three trends we observed for EMEA CIOs’ functional priorities:

1. Data & Analytics has risen to the #1 priority for EMEA CIOs, up from #4 in 2022. Data-driven decision making is a critical business driver, and CIOs say that enabling this is their top goal for their data & analytics strategies this year.
2. Although Cybersecurity Strategies is a major area of focus for CIOs, it dropped from the #1 spot in 2022 to the #2 in 2023. Mitigating risks and improving resiliency tied as the top two goals for their cybersecurity strategies, with 77% of respondents naming each as one of their goals. As for the top challenge within cybersecurity, 47% say a lack of skills is their greatest hindrance.
3. Digital Business Priorities is now the #3 priority for EMEA CIOs, up from #5 last year. Sixty-four percent of respondents cited expanding digital business and increasing maturity as their top goal. Fifty percent of respondents cited company culture as a barrier to success.
   
   

With the economy in flux, it is interesting to see how EMEA CIOs’ budgets and spending are affected this year. Here are the top three trends we are seeing for CIOs’ investments in 2023:

1. 57% of CIOs have an increase in their operating budget for the coming year, down from 64% in 2022, while 23% of CIOs say they have no change in budget from 2022.
2. 55% of CIOs have an increase in their planned spend for 2023, down from 66% in 2022.
3. Although Cybersecurity Strategies dropped to the #2 priority for 2023, it still remains the top planned investment area for the year, with 67% of EMEA CIOs planning to invest here. This is followed by planned investments in Data and Analytics Implementation (62%) and Business Applications (54%).
    

Overall, it’s clear that CIOs are increasingly impacting the broader business – creating value and better business outcomes with the support of technology. To ensure their success, they must ensure the business is secure, has the proper data and analytics capabilities, and has the tools to improve efficiencies and drive business acceleration.

View the complete results from Evanta’s annual Leadership Perspective Survey, and join your local CIO community to connect with like-minded peers on these mission critical priorities - apply to join today.