Gartner: Less than Half of Digital Initiatives Meet or Exceed Their Business Outcome Targets

On average, only 48% of digital initiatives enterprise-wide meet or exceed their business outcome targets, according to Gartner’s annual global survey of more than 4,000 technology executives and non-IT business leaders.

A small cohort of CIOs and CxOs, known by Gartner as the “Digital Vanguard,” has the highest achievement rate, where 71% of their digital initiatives meet or exceed outcome targets.

“This digital vanguard distinguishes themselves from the rest of CIOs and CxOs because they co-own digital delivery,” said Raf Gelders, VP, Research at Gartner. “CIOs and CxOs are equally responsible, accountable and involved in delivering the digital solutions their enterprises need. This is a radical departure from the traditional paradigm of IT delivery and business ‘project sponsorship’ that predominates in most enterprises.”

“Behind every digital vanguard CxO, a digital vanguard CIO is guiding and enabling CxOs and their teams to co-lead and co-build digital delivery with IT,” said Jaime Capella, Distinguished VP, Research at Gartner. “Digital vanguard CIOs nurture their peers to become digital vanguard CxOs. Those CIOs make it easier for their CxOs to lead digital with them and for business area staff to build digital solutions together with IT.

“CIOs’ success now depends on their CxOs’ success,” continued Capella. “To succeed at the next phase of digital initiatives, CIOs need their CxOs to work together and co-lead with them. So, their fortunes are intertwined: one cannot succeed without the other.”

More than 80% of CIOs polled in the 2025 CIO and Technology Executive Survey said they expect to increase their investments in 2025 in strong foundational capabilities and technologies such as cybersecurity, AI/GenAI, business intelligence and data analytics, or integration technologies/APIs.

At the other end of the spectrum, 43% of CIOs said they expect to decrease their investment in legacy infrastructure and data center technologies. This is a trend that has become more common in recent years, mainly due to migrating to cloud-based solutions. That compares with 33% who said they expect to increase it, which can be attributed, in part, to those organizations that acquired on-premise infrastructure to experiment and produce GenAI solutions.

Channel Impact^®
The data compare and contrast the success rates associated with two very distinct approaches to technology.