According to the survey of IT leaders, 66% of CIOs reported digital disruption — change resulting from digital technologies that disrupt established business models — as a very significant change to their business. This change is reportedly driving them to create new business models and bring new products and services to market faster than before.

The survey revealed that the pace of this change and the “race to innovate” had left many organisations lacking an enterprise-wide digital strategy and “desperately seeking to acquire the right skills”: ‘skills concerns’ are apparently one third higher than in 2013, and the demand for big data analytic skills has risen to be the number one most-needed skill, at nearly six times higher than the next most sought skill, change management.

“In the seventeen years we have conducted the survey we have never seen a new role grow so quickly as we have the chief digital officer,” said Albert Ellis, CEO of Harvey Nash Group. “We have never seen demand for a skill expand so quickly as we have for big data analytics. As technology increasingly becomes focused on the customer, the IT, marketing and operations teams are increasingly working together in new ways. Sometimes it creates friction, uncertainty and skills challenges, but for a CIO with the influence, connections and technical ability to bring it all together, it’s an exciting place to be.”

The Harvey Nash CIO Survey, in association with KPMG, surveyed around 4,000 IT leaders from over 50 countries.