2 n io t c Se The DNA of the IT-intensive industry CIO CIOs in IT-intensive industries are far more likely to hold places on the executive leadership team and recognize the skills needed for success. They are more likely to be empowered to drive the significant changes associated with the digital business transformation underway and seem to be more satisfied with their posts. It’s easy to pick Facebook as a truly digital business. But there are As The DNA of the CIO showed, these firms all provide ideal launch companies of all sizes that are embracing digital, and they can be pads for aspirational CIOs. Indeed, what is common across all these found in all sectors, from power and utilities to retail. Given this companies is that IT is a core boardroom topic, which receives challenge, we focused on the most IT-intensive industries globally — strong engagement from senior executives across the business. those with the highest average spend on IT as a percentage of total As would be expected, much is being done digitally in these revenue — because these are the firms most likely to be engaging in IT-intensive industries: just over half (51%) of CIOs in these digital. industries say that they are already strongly engaged in leading the This focus captures many of the firms that are using IT at the very implementation of such technologies.* core of their business — banks, pharmaceutical companies, telecommunications firms, media houses and, of course, technology firms themselves. Among these companies, there are some unsurprising names, but also many more traditional businesses. * Whenever we refer to terms such as strong, deep or key, we refer to those respondents that chose 8, 9 or 10 on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is lowest and 10 is highest. 10 | Born to be digital