Tech buying in business and governments is clearly shifting from the sole or primary control of the CIO and the tech management organization and into the hands of business leaders.  But how much is this happening? Anecdotal comments and surveys – including Forrester’s own Business Technographics surveys – suggest that most tech purchases are now controlled by business executives.  However, in our just-published report, “C-Suite Tech Purchasing Patterns,” Forrester’s analysis shows that the shift of tech buying from the CIO to business executives is much less dramatic, with just 5% of all new tech purchases fully controlled by business by 2018.  Moreover, this shift varies dramatically by C-level executive. CMOs and eCommerce heads have the highest proportion of new project spending under their control, but CFOs, COOs, supply chain heads, and heads of customer service are much less likely to go it on their own.

The big issue in making statements about who is buying technology is the fundamental difference between how consumers buy technology and how businesses and governments buy tech.  In business and government, there is seldom one person who makes the decision to buy a piece of technology.  Instead, there is a complex process of identifying a business need, finding and choosing a vendor with the right technology solution, implementing that solution, and making sure it is working well.  Different stakeholders will be involved in each stage of this process.  The growing tech-saaviness of business leaders and the wider availability of cloud solutions does mean that business leaders are playing a bigger role in the front end of this process. But the persistence of licensed software, the growing adoption of cloud as a replacement for licensed software, and challenges of implementing and optimizing solutions mean that CIOs and tech management teams still play a dominant role in overall tech purchases by businesses and governments.

Key findings of Forrester’s analysis of data on actual tech purchases:

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http://blogs.forrester.com/andrew_bartels/17-05-16-c_level_business_executives_are_playing_a_bigger_role_in_tech_spending_but_cios_still_remain_domina