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Gartner Says Digital Business Incompetence Will Cause 25 Percent of Businesses to Lose Competitive Ranking by 2017


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STAMFORD, Conn.

Competition for Talent Will Make or Break Digital Business Success

IT Workforce Trends to be Examined at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2013, October 6-10,

Digital business incompetence will cause a quarter of businesses to lose competitive ranking by 2017, according to Gartner, Inc. During the second quarter of 2013, Gartner conducted a survey of 151 participants who were intimately involved in making digital business strategy decisions or in locating, developing and acquiring talent for those digital business strategy endeavors. Ninety percent of respondents thought that competition for talent will make or break digital business success.

“The next decade will move beyond the notion of using technology to automate businesses and toward positioning technology as revenue builder, market maker and customer finder,” said Diane Morello, managing vice president at Gartner. "When companies have those targets in mind, digital business becomes real. The impact of digital business will be undeniable: It will introduce new business models, cause industries to be ’digitally remastered’ and change the way that businesses put great minds to work.

“Few things have jumped into the consciousness of business executives as quickly as digital business,” continued Ms. Morello. “In our recent Talent on the Digital Frontier survey, roughly one in two participants say that their digital business strategy either is their business strategy or is at least an integrated part of that business strategy.”

According to Ms. Morello, a digital business strategy creates value and revenue from digital assets. It goes beyond process automation to transform processes, business models and customer experience by exploiting the pervasive digital connections between systems, people, places and things.

Digital business has rapidly become a lingua franca of modern business, a common and unifying language across people whose native languages — in the modern age, the languages of organizations, companies, cultures and occupations — are different.

To jump-start digital business activity, Gartner recommends identifying key strategy players and possessors of technology and business expertise both inside and outside the enterprise and engaging them to launch a digital business community of practice to enrich cross-business understanding. CIOs who learn to orchestrate talent across multiple employment models and channels can take advantage of global ecosystems to build digital expertise quickly.

“Demand is growing for insight into digital business, particularly among CEOs and CIOs who fear that their companies may be falling behind new business models and competitive opportunities,” said Ms. Morello. “Their concern is justified. Digital business will concentrate almost exclusively on new sources of revenue derived from new products, services, channels and information for new customers and constituencies. On top of the expectation that digital business expertise will spread around businesses within two or three years, other indicators suggest that digital business represents not an extension of the past, but rather, a different trajectory. Revenue ambitions will go unmet if CIOs and senior executives ignore the cultural and organizational challenges that accompany digital business.”

The world of digital business does more than pose challenges for CIOs and other executives. It also opens opportunities to use digital technology to reach beyond organizational boundaries, to assemble problem-solving expertise from around the world, to weave a fabric of knowledge and expertise across communities of practice, and to understand and exploit new models of work. Notably, the quest for digital business expertise provides an undeniable opportunity for CIOs and HR executives to create a robust alliance that helps them meet their respective outcomes. Leading-edge CIOs become leading edge because their HR and talent strategy counterparts support them.

“Together, CIOs and HR talent executives scour the globe for qualified experts and talented people and bring them into their work streams, no matter their locations or their employment arrangements,” said Ms. Morello. “Relying solely on tactics of yesterday to find, acquire and develop digital business knowledge, skills and competencies will cause many businesses to fall behind as other businesses advance. The impact on people, talent and long-term workforce strategy will be high, and the willingness to break through stale or aging people practices will build advantage.”

Ms. Morello advised CIOs to work with high-influence HR executives to investigate talent orchestration and to redesign the learning programs required to build digital business expertise. The focus should be on hiring, developing and deploying versatile and multidisciplined teams of people. Once teams are hired, the organization should promote employee engagement as doing so will make the organization more attractive to prospective employees and increase talent retention rates throughout the shift toward the digital strategy.

More detailed analysis is available in the report “Talent on the Digital Frontier: The Stakes Rise in Digital Business.” The report is available on Gartner’s website at http://www.gartner.com/resId=2591917.

Ms. Morello will provide additional analysis on IT workforce trends at Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2013.

About Gartner Symposium/ITxpo

Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world’s most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives. This event delivers independent and objective content with the authority and weight of the world’s leading IT research and advisory organization, and provides access to the latest solutions from key technology providers. Gartner’s annual Symposium/ITxpo events are key components of attendees’ annual planning efforts. IT executives rely on Gartner Symposium/ITxpo to gain insight into how their organizations can use IT to address business challenges and improve operational efficiency.

Additional information for Gartner Symposium/ITxpo 2013 in Orlando, October 6-10, is available at www.gartner.com/us/symposium. Members of the media can register for the event by contacting Christy Pettey at christy.pettey@gartner.com.

Additional information from the event will be shared on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Gartner_inc and using #GartnerSym.

Upcoming dates and locations for Gartner Symposium/ITxpo include:

October 6-10, Orlando, Florida: www.gartner.com/us/symposium

October 15-17, Tokyo, Japan: www.gartner.com/jp/symposium

October 21-24, Goa, India: www.gartner.com/in/symposium

October 28-31, Gold Coast, Australia: www.gartner.com/au/symposium

November 4-7, Sao Paulo, Brazil: www.gartner.com/br/symposium

November 10-14, Barcelona, Spain: www.gartner.com/eu/symposium


About Gartner

Gartner, Inc. (NYSE: IT) is the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company. Gartner delivers the technology-related insight necessary for its clients to make the right decisions, every day. From CIOs and senior IT leaders in corporations and government agencies, to business leaders in high-tech and telecom enterprises and professional services firms, to technology investors, Gartner is the valuable partner in over 13,000 distinct organizations. Through the resources of Gartner Research, Gartner Executive Programs, Gartner Consulting and Gartner Events, Gartner works with every client to research, analyze and interpret the business of IT within the context of their individual role. Founded in 1979, Gartner is headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, U.S.A., and has 5,500 associates, including 1,400 research analysts and consultants, and clients in 85 countries. For more information, visit www.gartner.com.



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