Digital disruption causing 'very significant change' at most companies, new survey finds

This digital disruption is prompting companies to "create new business models and bring new products and services to market faster than before", the Harvey Nash 2015 CIO survey found.

Harvey Nash surveyed 3,691 IT leaders earlier this year, with 33% of respondents identified as CIOs. Other respondents included chief executives and technology directors. Respondents were based in more than 30 countries and work for companies that spend more than $200 billion on IT between them.

According to the survey, 10% of CIOs do not think their business will be affected by digital disruption "in the coming years". However, the survey also identified that smaller businesses have greater belief that they will handle digital disruption better than competitors than larger businesses.

Responding earlier this week to the news that peer-to-peer lending platform Zopa has partnered with Metro Bank to allow the bank to offer lending facilities via its platform, technology law expert Tim Roughton of Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind Out-Law.com, said existing businesses need to understand and review the threat of disruptive competition and develop and implement a digital strategy to react to that threat.

"That strategy is increasingly likely to involve more collaboration with new market entrants, with other businesses or with its supply chain to create new and innovative products and services to meet customer demands," Roughton said.

In the Harvey Nash survey, half of CIOs said they are looking to external sources for digital skills that in-house staff do not have. Improving business intelligence and analytics was the fast growing operational priority identified for companies in the survey.

The survey also found that a growing number of businesses are employing chief digital officers. Last year 7% of CIOs reported that they work alongside a CDO. This year, 17% said they now work with a CDO, with a further 5% of companies expected to recruit a new CDO in the months ahead.

Almost half of CDOs (47%) take on "full leadership of the digital strategy" for their employer, the survey found. However, CIOs, chief executives or chief marketing officers are given the role of leading that strategy at the majority of organisations.

Responsibility for digital technology has shifted back from marketing departments to IT teams in the past year, according to the survey.

A quarter of CIOs also said their business had experienced at least one major IT security incident in the past year.