The growth versus efficiency challenge is one of the hardest problems in business today. Gate One’s Transformation Index, based on a global IDC study of 750 senior leaders, finds that organisations consistently rank these priorities among their top three.
Leaders are being asked to grow and become more efficient at the same time, under budget pressure, with workforces stretched by years of continuous change.
The modern CIO and technology leaders sit at the centre of resolving this tension, yet the research finds that just 21% of organisations have reached advanced or leading transformation maturity, and only 6% are consistently delivering strong transformation outcomes.
This gap should concern every technology leader. CIOs are uniquely placed to see the systems, data, processes, risks and investment choices that determine whether transformation delivers.
Walking the balance tightrope: why growth and efficiency pull in different directions
Only 20% of organisations view technology investments as fundamental to business strategy and a key driver for market differentiation. Investment must visibly improve revenue, margin, productivity or resilience, so CIOs must prove value early and often.
AI adds urgency to this problem rather than solving it, and it’s already improving process speed for 60% of organisations. However, faster work is not the same as better work.
The bigger prize lies in removing complexity first, so AI scales simpler processes and supports strategic forecasting, instead of accelerating old problems.
What separates leading CIOs from the rest?
The Transformation Index shows how few organisations are getting this right, and more crucially, why. People are consistently the harder half of the equation, with 55% of organisations citing skills and capability gaps as a people-related barrier to technology adoption.
While AI continues to dominate the headlines, sustainable transformation depends on data platforms, cloud infrastructure, architecture, cyber resilience and governance.
Over half (55%) of organisations surveyed are already prioritising data platforms and advanced analytics over AI itself, yet only 18% of established organisations actively manage data to create value, with integrated datasets supporting decision-making and measurable outcomes.
Leading CIOs treat transformation as one connected system, not a stack of technology initiatives handed to an organisation designed for the past.
The five moves that must shape the modern CIO agenda
When planning and communicating their technology strategy, CIOs need to frame the cost of inaction as clearly as the value of change. Technology leaders should prioritise the following:
- Shift the conversation from investment to value: Define the business value before delivery starts, then track growth, efficiency, resilience, customer experience and productivity.
- Redesign processes before scaling AI: Use AI to simplify end-to-end processes, not to automate complexity faster.
- Treat skills as critical infrastructure: Build the digital, AI, data and delivery skills that make technology useful in everyday work.
- Strengthen your foundations: Prioritise data, cloud, architecture, cybersecurity and governance as the foundations for transformation that can scale.
- Build organisational capacity for change: Make priorities explicit, sequence change properly, and give teams the capacity and support to deliver.
Gate One helps CIOs close the gap between technology investment and business value by designing transformations as a system that supports growth and improves efficiency together.
If only 6% of organisations consistently convert transformation effort into results, the question for every CIO is simple: what will it take for yours to be one of them?
Sources
IDC White Paper “The Balance Advantage: How organisations crack the growth-efficiency code” (IDC #EUR154681426, July 2026); n = 750.
IDC Resource Map Document, “The Balance Advantage: How organisations crack the growth-efficiency code”, sponsored by Gate One, (IDC #EUR154699426, July 2026)
Source: www.cio.com
