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Category: Expertise strategy

Business trend in 2025: Urgency for CEOs to take back IT ownership to drive growth

In this article, we examine why it's crucial for business owners to fully understand and have the right tools to manage their own data. At emagine, we believe that true growth comes from businesses taking full ownership and control of their data.

Growth and technology are currently the two biggest business priorities for CEOs. According to Gartner research, 62% of CEOs across the globe say growth is their top business priority for 2024-5, representing a dramatic increase from last year, when only 49% said it was their no.1 focus. This return to a ‘growth mindset’, Gartner claims, heralds a rise in business leaders’ confidence and proactive growth strategies after a challenging few years.

It is no surprise that technology is second on the priority list given the pace of change over recent years, and the opportunities that emerging tech brings to leverage data and support business growth. This means that how the IT function and data is managed has never been more important for businesses.

Read more about the Gartner research

 

IT function is integral to growth

Data and technology form a central pillar in business growth. A key ingredient for successful digital transformations that drive growth is taking a holistic, organisation-wide approach and integrating new technologies and practices seamlessly throughout a firm’s operations. In customer-facing sectors like retail and finance, knowing your customer is paramount and relies entirely on data, making the IT function instrumental to business growth.

This means that business owners and those responsible for IT need to fully understand and have the tools and processes in place to leverage the data on their own systems. They need to ‘own’ and be in full control of their data.

Therefore, a critical part of 2025 planning for business leaders will involve reviewing how their organisation invests in and manages its IT capabilities, including data management. This is a perennial question for a company of any size. The best solution can depend on the sector, the service or product, and the broader market environment.

Many businesses outsource some, or all, of their IT needs, but does outsourcing allow these businesses to be agile enough to adapt to the changing marketplace and find its opportunities?

Alternatively, is the cost of bringing services in-house, including investment in employees, training and resources such as infrastructure and manager’s time, too great and likely to spiral as technology never stands still?

 

  To support growth, IT suppliers must become flexible and strategic partners to identify new opportunities and deliver tailored, scalable solutions.

 

Traditionally, an external supplier would take over responsibility for the delivery of a particular project or service in its entirety and in relative isolation, allowing time for the company’s employees to focus on their core activities. However, for reasons explored above, this model is no longer suited to the IT challenges and opportunities of today’s business leaders.

With more companies leveraging emerging technologies to maximise business outcomes, today’s IT service suppliers and IT consultancies must fuse the gap between outsourcing and insourcing. They must provide a service that brings the insight and company perspective of in-house provision, alongside the time, knowledge and cost efficiencies of outsourcing.

To support growth, IT suppliers must become flexible and strategic partners to identify new opportunities and deliver scalable solutions tailored to the specific requirements of the client business. This is only possible with a complete understanding of the company’s business model, workflows and strategic goals.

 

Expected boom in tech investment

The IT function will also never stand still. As part of a return to growth strategies, greater investment in technology has been widely anticipated with global IT spending expected to grow by 9.3% year-on-year in 2025, and reach $5.74 trillion, according to Gartner.

Read the Gartner forecast

As well as the hype and hesitations around AI, it has been suggested that 90% of business leaders now better understand the direction of travel of this technology and feel more comfortable in their investment decisions.

Read the Business Reporter article

Nonetheless, adjusting to new technologies and their related risks is a significant challenge, particularly for larger firms, both in terms of the scale of the projects and the expertise needed for implementation and maintenance.

 

The challenges of disruption

Despite a more positive outlook with 81% of business leaders optimistic about the direction of the economy, CEOs have a plethora of forces beyond their control to contend with. This backdrop may include supply chain issues, inflation, the impact of climate change, war, fast-moving technological developments and many other disruptive influences.

These factors are particularly important to navigate effectively and find opportunities when businesses are focused on growth.

 

  For most organisations, how the IT function is embedded and managed will play a vital role in supporting or even enabling a shift in business model.

 

The annual Disruption Index applies a rating that measures the number and intensity of disruptive forces that companies currently face, considering their volume and complexity. In 2024, the overall Index fell from 79 to 76 but remains six points higher than 2021’s 70, even though this was during peak pandemic disruption.

These disruptions bring challenges but also opportunities, so long as businesses can adapt. In the latest Index, three-quarters of CEOs reportedly face a high level of disruption and worry that their companies are not adapting fast enough, and an astonishing 98% of CEOs expect to change their business models over the next three years.

For most organisations, how the IT function is embedded and managed will play a vital role in supporting or even enabling a shift in business model. Having the right expertise and understanding is critical.

Read the report from Endava

Check out the Disruption Index

 

Partners, not suppliers

emagine's flexible business model and services are designed to help the emerging challenges many companies face.

Our business advisors and expert consultants have a 360-degree grasp of common business challenges that our clients face and can also leverage industry expertise across the many sectors we operate in.

We offer a flexible approach and build long-lasting partnerships to support our clients through ongoing change, identify growth opportunities, and future-proof the business.

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