IDG surveyed 900 IT leaders, line of business participants and CIOs in the 2020 State of the CIO Executive Summary. The two most important business drivers for IT budgets were increasing operational efficiency and improving customer experience.

Here are the key takeaways. To learn more about these and other findings, get your copy of the report from IDG:

1. The three main business drivers for IT budgets this year are increasing operational efficiency, cited by 37 percent of State of the CIO survey respondents, improving customer experience (35%) and increasing cybersecurity protections (33%)
2. CIOs continue to move toward a strategic role – 40% of CIOs fall into a strategic role which is right behind the previous front runner, transformational (42%).
3. 95% of CIOs say that their role is expanding to include new responsibilities – the main areas are cybersecurity (64%), data privacy/compliance (49%) and customer experience (46%).
4. Line of business recognizes that senior IT leaders are no longer only essential for optimizing IT infrastructure, but also for driving revenue and innovation – 56% of LOB agree that CIOs are more involved in leading digital transformation initiatives compared to their business counterparts and this is up from 47% in 2019.
5. IT and LOB are aligned on the top two business initiatives that will drive the most IT investment in 2020 – increase operational efficiency and improve customer experience.
6. When evaluating tools and solutions during the tech purchase process, CIOs rely on strategic vendors (52%) and their peers (42%).
7. 67% of CIOs say that the creation of new revenue-generating initiatives is among their job responsibilities.

Download the report from IDG to Learn more about about things like the plans CIO’s have revenue-generating initiatives as well as the key business and technology initiatives that are expected to drive the most IT investment in 2020 and how IT is involved in their organization’s data and analytics needs.