Special Report
The Impact of COVID-19

The CIO Innovation Index Special Report examines IT trends and spending impacted by the pandemic. COVID-19 has had an unprecedented impact on IT departments as companies have had to ramp up customer service and enable a fully remote workforce almost overnight. Despite uncertainty, our just released report finds that IT budgets and headcount will remain steady with the majority of CIOs anticipating IT vendor spend to remain constant (46%) or increase (40%). But while our data shows that IT budgets aren’t shrinking for many CIOs, spend allocation is quickly shifting.

About our Survey

Earlier this year, we conducted the second annual Sapphire Ventures CIO Innovation Index survey, which explores how CIOs and IT leaders are adopting emerging technologies and engaging with venture-backed startups.

We fielded the survey just as COVID-19 emerged as a global threat, so we made sure to ask questions specific to the pandemic to understand how enterprise IT organizations have been grappling with the changing environment, and the impact on startup engagement.

Ahead of the full CIO Innovation Index to be published this September, we've released this Special Report: The Impact of COVID-19 on Enterprise Innovation based on input from more than 100 CIOs and IT executives from large enterprises.

Key findings include

• Despite uncertainty, budgets remain steady as spend shifts to critical technologies
• CIOs are prioritizing digitization initiatives due to COVID-19
• CIOs are eager to work with startups, most feel they’ve been key to enabling remote work