How digital business ecosystems drive efficiency and innovation in a new era

Productivity, efficiency, and cost control—always core goals for CIOs—have become even more critical as organizations navigate the current economic uncertainty.

Our survey data was collected in January and February 2020, largely before the uncertainty that has followed. Even then, the CIOs in our survey saw their complex, deepening networks of partners and suppliers as critical to everything from efficiency to customer satisfaction and growth. Now normal operations have been disrupted with astonishing speed, and weathering the storm will require organizations to effectively control, secure, and leverage their partnerships. The results of this research illuminates the tactics CIOs must use to survive and thrive in the new era. 

The survey results tell a clear story: business relationships are growing stronger, more diverse, and increasingly widespread as companies work across internal, partner, industry, and public-sector ecosystems. These business relationships are aimed at both increasing the efficiency of daily operations and pursuing more strategic goals—everything from automating processes and improving employee productivity to providing market intelligence, each of which in turn can support business growth by distributing innovation efforts across a broader network. Yet our research shows that even as business relationships deepen and become more integrated, many CIOs are not yet participating in true digital business ecosystems, which use advanced technologies and processes to share and analyze data, collaborate with developers, measure performance, and support growth.