BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY DECISION MAKING AT THE TOP

[EC MEA] IDC has begun the its Worldwide CEO Survey. What is the reason for moving away from technology decision makers to executive decision makers?

We do have a CEO survey. The reason why we refer to the CEO survey is because technology is becoming such an important enabler of the business and we are seeing it intertwined. The technology strategy, the business strategy is becoming intertwined.

The share of revenues of a company today, on the digital products and services is increasing much faster than the traditional sustainability. This is bringing technology into the discussion.

How can we become more carbon neutral? How can we reduce the footprint and so on? How can we deliver products and services at low prices, and make technology more efficient in the discussion?

Technology today has grabbed the attention of CEO suite. It is very important for us as to understand what is the C-suite and what does the CEO believe. How are they leveraging technology to become efficient in all of those things.

It gives us a sense of what are the strategic priorities of the business. And we want to see if there is a proper alignment between the business priorities and IT priorities. The CEO pulse gives us that direction, to be able to lean on.

[EC MEA] Do IT vendors and solution partners need to begin selling to CEOs as well. Have we reached that stage?

It depends on the industry and it depends on the size. CEOs are important stakeholders in the discussion. I think it is very critical for vendors to have visibility of what the CEO’s agenda is.

Often times their exposure is limited to the IT organisation, which is a very one-dimensional view, of what the organisation wants to achieve, and what are the outcomes.

It is the business agenda, which really provides the right perspective to technology suppliers. That gives them a sense of what business outcomes the organisation wants to achieve.