In its 19^th year, the Harvey Nash/KPMG CIO Survey 2017 is the largest IT leadership survey ever undertaken, with 4,498 responses from CIOs and technology executives across 86 countries.

In the 2017 survey, technology leaders tell us that the level of change they are experiencing has reached unprecedented levels, and increasingly it is coming from unexpected corners. Many technology executives are turning this uncertainty into opportunity. They are helping their organizations become more nimble and digital, to navigate through unpredictable change, and to thrive in an uncertain world.

Analysis of the data found a clear divergence between organizations that are effective at digital transformation and those that are not. CIOs at these ‘digital leader’ organizations are almost twice as likely to be leading innovation across the business, and their organizations are investing in cognitive automation at four times the rate of others.

Some of the key findings include:

• Two-thirds of organizations are adapting their technology strategy because of unprecedented global political and economic uncertainty
• However, 89 percent are maintaining or ramping up investment in innovation, including in digital labor
  
• Digital strategies have been embraced by businesses at an entirely new level
  
• Cyber security vulnerability is at an all-time high
  
• Female CIOs are far more likely to have received a salary increase than male CIOs in the past year, but still the number of women in IT leadership remains extraordinarily low at 9 percent
  
• Enterprise architecture is the fastest growing tech skill in demand
  
• IT projects are more complex; and weak ownership, an overly optimistic approach, and unclear objectives are the main reasons IT projects fail.
  

Learn more in the full report (PDF 3.36 MB).