CRO Edition
2020 CIO Innovation Index

About our Survey

This September, we released the 2020 CIO Innovation Index: Startup Engagement Trends for the Crisis CIO. As we evaluated the data and trends, we realized the report has implications for startup CROs and revenue leaders, so we developed the CRO Edition of the 2020 CIO Innovation Index.

The report leverages CIO Innovation Index data to provide guidance to startups on how to better attract large enterprise CIO buyers, including mitigating weaknesses, making proof-of-concept improvements and more.

Key findings include

• The proof-of-concept (POC) process remains a critical gateway for startup technology adoption with the majority of CIOs leveraging POCs to test a product’s performance.
• CIOs are more likely to tap startups over incumbents for Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR) investments, while large vendors were more likely to be leveraged for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning projects in 2020.
• CIOs are not only startup gatekeepers of technology innovation for enterprise, they can be strong startup allies. Nearly 60 percent of CIOs surveyed serve as advisors and over 50% serve as mentors to startups.