CEOs And CIOs Are On Board, But Others?

While technology has become a CEO-level concern and the CIO has attained strategic stature, according to research released last month by PwC, many other senior executives and the functional areas they lead are not yet fully engaged in digital transformation. Very few functions outside IT and operations "have a leading role in emerging technology exploration," PwC said in its report. In spite of that, PwC noted that – in the last three years – the percentage of technology spend that lives outside the CIO's budget has more than doubled, from 35 to 72 percent.

"So the good news is that the CEO is taking a leadership role here in corralling all this," Chris Curran, chief technologist for PwC, told a DXC "Investors Day" presentation in March. "The challenge is that there are many more buyers and a distributed buying platform. So, that creates interesting opportunities and challenges for leadership to figure out how to keep it all together."