Gartner Research

2017 CEO Survey: CFOs Look for Growth Through Success in Digital Business

Published: 12 April 2017

ID: G00327991

Analyst(s): Sanil Solanki

Summary

The 2017 Gartner CEO and Senior Business Executive Survey shows that CFOs are changing their focus from traditional cost management to prioritizing growth in revenue. CIOs can use this research to align with CFOs to ensure the expectations around digital business success can be delivered.

Table Of Contents
  • Impacts

Analysis

Impacts and Recommendations

  • CFOs ranked new revenue growth as a No. 1 priority over generating free cash flow in 2017, and CIOs could see an increase in innovation budgets as a result
  • CFOs ranked self-funding and using operating budgets to fund as the main sources of the digital transformation budget, so CIOs must evaluate ways to scale resources for additional business budget for innovation
  • 51% of CFOs did not distinguish "digital" as a separate revenue category when reporting results and only 7% measure and publish digital revenue externally; hence, CIOs might be pressured to reduce business-as-usual spend to keep overall spend under control
  • Conclusion

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