Dubai: While the roles of Chief Data Officer and Chief Digital Officer are fast gaining prominence in companies across the world, the same cannot be said of organisations in the Gulf, Peter Sondergaard, senior vice-president and global head of research at Gartner, told Gulf News.
Citing a survey conducted by Gartner, Sondergaard said that while 66 per cent of the global IT organisations expect to have these posts in the next two years, the percentage is zero within the region.
However, he expects the role to disappear within six years’ time as it is like taking over a responsibility which everyone in the organisation should have.
“If every company is a technology company, then they cannot take the responsibility and park it with one person and [at the same time, that] does not mean that others should ignore it,” he said.
Chief information officers (CIOs) in the region are still too focused on “engine room” issues and are still some ways behind in demonstrating the business value of information technology.
Cloud adoption in the Gulf is a step ahead compared to the rest of the world and it is the second top priority after analytics, while it is the fifth priority for CIOs for the rest of the world.
He said that 40 per cent of organisations have made significant cloud investments in the region.
“Cost is not the main driver for organisations to move to the cloud, it is the agility,” Sondergaard said.
