Enterprises must embrace business composability to thrive through disruption in 2022 and beyond, according to Gartner, Inc.’s annual global survey of CIOs and technology executives.
Business composability is the mindset, technologies, and set of operating capabilities that enable organizations to innovate and adapt quickly to changing business needs. It is built on applying the key principle of modularity to business assets to achieve the scale and pace required of business ambition.
“Business composability is an antidote to volatility,” said Monika Sinha, research vice president at Gartner. “Sixty-three percent of survey respondents at organizations with high composability reported superior business performance compared with peers or competitors in the past year. They are better able to pursue new value streams through technology, too.”
Investments in AI, Cloud and Security Technologies Support Business Composability
Artificial intelligence (AI) and distributed cloud are the two main technologies that a majority of high-composability enterprises have already deployed or plan on deploying in 2022. These technologies are a catalyst for business composability because they enable modular technology capabilities.
Cyber and information security is at the top of the list of technology areas for increased spending in 2022, with 66% of all respondents expecting to increase associated investments in the next year. This is followed by business intelligence/data analytics (51%) and cloud platforms (48%).
Among respondents from India, 64% of CIOs have cyber and information security as an area for increasing spending, followed by business intelligence/data analytics (56%) and digital business transformation initiatives (51%).
“There is a continued need to invest in cybersecurity as the environment becomes more challenging. A high level of composability would help an enterprise recover faster and potentially even minimize the effects of a cybersecurity incident,” said Sinha.
High-Composability Enterprises Leverage IT Better
On average, high-composability enterprises expect greater increases in revenue and IT budget in 2022 than their moderate-or low-composability peers. In 2022, CIOs and technology executives at high-composability enterprises expect their revenue and IT budgets to grow, on average, by 7.7% and 4.2%, respectively, while low-composability enterprises only expect both to increase by 3.4% and 3.1%, respectively.
“Most high-composability enterprises set up strategic planning and budgeting as a continuous and iterative activity to adjust to change more easily,” said Sinha. “Without big deficits to remedy elsewhere, CIOs can afford to invest in composability, especially for IT developers and business architects who can design in a composable manner.”
In 2022, IT spending in India is forecast to total $101.8 billion for the first time, an increase of 7% from 2021. 64% of survey respondents from India will spend additional budget on cyber and information security projects (64% of survey respondents) and 56% will decrease their spending on legacy infrastructure and data center technologies (56% of survey respondents)
Three Domains of Business Composability
With volatility serving as a business driver for the foreseeable future, CIOs are in a unique position to advance the three domains of business composability: composable thinking, composable business architecture and composable technology.
