E-Business
Survey Reveals Why CIOs Must “Flip” Leadership Styles- Gartner
As the technologies and trends that power digitalization move to center stage, Chief Information Officers (CIOs) are being presented with a unique opportunity to become digital leaders according to a global survey of CIOs by Gartner, Inc.
The survey showed that CIOs are fully aware that they will need to change in order to succeed in digital business, with 75 percent of respondents saying that they need to adapt their leadership style in the next three years.
Gartner analysts presented these findings during the sold out Gartner Symposium/ITxpo, which is taking place here through Thursday.
“To grasp the digital opportunity, incrementally improving IT performance isn’t enough,” said Dave Aron, vice president and Gartner Fellow. Digitalization is no longer a sideshow — it has moved to center stage and is changing the whole game. CIOs now have a unique opportunity, but they must ‘flip’ their information, technology, value and people leadership practices to deliver on the digital promise.”
The worldwide survey included responses from 2,810 CIOs, representing more than $397 billion in CIO IT budgets in 84 countries.
The Gartner report “Flipping to Digital Leadership: The 2015 CIO Agenda,” represents the most comprehensive examination of digital business opportunities and threats and CIO strategies.
Gartner’s last CIO Survey — “Taming the Digital Dragon: The 2014 CIO Agenda” — explored the advent of the third era of enterprise IT, where information and technology make a fundamentally different contribution to the business, less tied to efficiency and effectiveness of internal processes than to enabling disruptive new products, services and business models. Nearly one year later, the third era is here, and digitalization is increasingly determining the winners and losers in all industries.
“This isn’t just a high-tech story, a U.S. story, a private-sector story, a large-company story or a startup story,” said Mr. Aron. “Digitalization is transforming all types of companies and public sector agencies. More often than not, these transformations represent both massive opportunities and substantial challenges for the CIO and the IT organization. Digitalization is not only a way to gain a competitive edge, but also provides a powerful ability to flip disadvantages into advantages.”
According to the 2015 CIO Survey, 89 percent of CIOs agree that in addition to the considerable opportunities afforded by digitalization, the digital world engenders new, vastly different and higher levels of risk, and 69 percent said that the discipline of risk management is not keeping up.
CIOs therefore need to review with the enterprise and IT risk leaders whether risk management is adapting fast enough to a digital world.
The exciting news for CIOs, is that despite the rise of roles, such as the chief digital officer, they are not doomed to be an observer of the digital revolution.
According the survey, 41 percent of CIOs are reporting to their CEO.
This is a return to one of the highest levels it has ever been, a result of the digital narrative gaining prominence in the boardroom and on the executive committee.
Even stronger evidence of opportunity for CIOs is the fact that the survey reveals that CEOs expect them to lead the digital charge during this critical transition period.
However, as in last year’s CIO survey, it appears that IT budgets are not growing exuberantly.
The average IT budget will grow by just one percent from 2014 to 2015. CIOs estimate that 79 percent of IT spending will be “inside” the IT budget (up slightly from last year), but much digital innovation can and will be funded outside the planned IT spending.
Perhaps the biggest hurdle when it comes to digital opportunity for CIOs is the fact that the IT discipline within most enterprises has developed a set of behaviors and beliefs over many years, which are ill-suited to exploiting digital opportunities and responding to digital threats.
To start with, most enterprises still think of innovation in terms of the technology paradigm. If this continues, the digital opportunity may be lost.
Digital leadership means flipping the approach from legacy first to digital first, assuming all solutions will be cloud based, designed for mobile and highly contextualized, and looking to exploit unstructured data, and run data-led experiments. Secondly, most enterprises and their CIOs disproportionately focus on what is easily measurable (e.g., IT cost), rather than what is most valuable or requiring the most attention (e.g., the value of building a digital capability) — another situation that has to flip.
“During the second IT era of industrialization, people leadership was honed to emphasize precision, discipline and tight control,” said Graham Waller, vice president and executive partner for Gartner Executive Programs. “Therefore, through both nature and nurture, CIOs have evolved into control-style pragmatic leaders. Given the characteristics of the new digital era, this bias is dangerous. CIOs must invert their style to be more vision-led and inspirational.”
The survey results underline the fact that CIOs already know this. Seventy-three percent of surveyed CIOs say that they have changed their leadership style over the last three years, and 75 percent say they must change it over the next three years to flip their leadership style from “control first” to “vision first.”
“Being a powerful digital leader and influencer takes time and CIOs need to spend time being digital leaders,” said Mr. Aron. “Running an IT organization is a complex business, and when we compare the 2011 and 2015 Gartner CIO Surveys, we find that the average CIO is spending more, not less, time running the IT shop — five percent more, or an extra day per month.
“However, the survey data also tells us that, all things being equal, the CIOs with higher performance as IT leaders spend significantly less time running the IT shop and delegate some business unit leader engagement. This gives them an extra five percent ‘time bonus,’ or a day per month, to engage the board, senior leadership and external customers.”
Nigeria has emerged as one of Africa’s most regulated online gambling markets, even as illegal operators continue to dominate the continent, according to a new report by Gaming Compliance International (GCI).
The report, the first comprehensive assessment of online gambling across all 54 African countries, showed that Africa’s online gambling Gross Gaming Revenue (GGR) reached $23 billion in 2025.
However, only $5.2 billion (23 per cent) was generated by licensed operators, while $17.8 billion (77 per cent) remained in the unregulated market.
In West Africa, total online gambling revenue rose to $4.8 billion in 2025 from $4.3 billion in 2024. Of the 2025 figure, regulated operators accounted for $1.5 billion (31 per cent), while $3.3 billion (69 per cent) flowed to unlicensed platforms, highlighting the region’s persistent enforcement challenges.
Nigeria stood out as the region’s strongest performer, recording the lowest unregulated market share at 56 per cent, compared with the West African average of 69 per cent and the African average of 77 per cent.
The study also found that online gambling participation across Africa increased from 198 million people (13 per cent of the population) in 2024 to 215 million (14 per cent) in 2025.
Despite this growth, GCI estimated that illegal operators deprived African governments of about $3.55 billion in tax revenue in 2025. The number of unlicensed gambling platforms targeting African consumers also rose to 4,129, up from 3,644 in 2024.
Commenting on the findings, Matt Holt, chief executive officer, GCI, said the report provides regulators with the first continent-wide benchmark for strengthening oversight and consumer protection.
Ismail Vali, president, GCI, urged governments to develop competitive and well-regulated markets that encourage consumers to patronise licensed operators, boost public revenue and attract greater investment.
Online gambling in Nigeria is regulated by the Nation Lottery Regulatory Commission.
At the height of the Northern Hemisphere tourist season, demand for communications and mobile Internet services rises sharply. Kaspersky’s security experts have uncovered scams that target anyone purchasing mobile connections or SIM cards worldwide.
Fraudsters create counterfeit websites that look like the portals of major regional and international telecom providers to trick users into revealing their phone numbers, personal details or banking information.
Kaspersky is sharing several examples of these fake login pages that mimic legitimate telecom operator sites and giving recommendations on how not to be deceived.
In the first case, scammers exploit the brand name of an international telecommunications company operating services in Asia, Africa and Europe. Fake authentication pages encourage users to put in their phone number and credentials.
While the first example shows the different design, the second scam site closely mimics the original log in page, making it hard for users to tell the difference and spot a fake. Entering authentication or payment data on fraudulent web sites may result in money or data loss and become a reason for more frequent spam and fraudulent calls.
Another example is a scam page which poses as another international communications company, working in North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. In this scheme scammers encourage users to top up their mobile data/Internet plans by entering their personal information and bank cards details.
Kaspersky experts have also identified a scam when cyber criminals suggest users enter their personal data to check and pay a bill inquiry. Such scam schemes are usually aimed at gaining victims’ personal data for further fraud or account hacking and stealing money.
“Because of the active use of AI, scammers can now create fake pages with ever increasing accuracy and speed, targeting the most popular user interest areas. We constantly see scams revolving around sports events, music concerts, seasonal sales and holidays. Unfortunately, the telecoms industry is no exception.
To keep your data and money safe, be vigilant when purchasing mobile or Internet plans online. Using an eSIM – purchased through an official app – is one way to avoid fake telecom sites, as it eliminates the need to enter personal details on questionable web pages.
If you’re unsure about a site’s legitimacy, search for the brand name directly in a search engine and enable a security solution that blocks phishing links for you,” comments Tatyana Kulikova, cybersecurity expert at Kaspersky.
In a strategic push to bridge the gender digital divide, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) has partnered with the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ) to advance women’s digital inclusion and drive the nation’s transformation agenda.
Dr Aristotle Onumo and some NITDA staff, pose for a group photograph with the President of the National Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Comrade Aisha Ibrahim, and members of the delegation following a strategic engagement at the Agency’s Headquarters in Abuja.
The partnership was cemented during a courtesy visit to NITDA Director General, Kashifu Inuwa, CCIE, by a NAWOJ delegation led by National President Comrade Aishatu Ibrahim, who introduced the agency to the forthcoming Women in Security (WINSEC) Summit & Awards 2026.
Inuwa, represented by Dr. Aristotle Onumo, the Director of the Stakeholders Management and Partnerships Department, assured the association that NITDA would not only participate in the conference, but also support the success of the conference.
Inuwa hailed the NAWOJ for creating a platform for peacebuilding, dialogue on security and women’s inclusion, which he described as one of the critical areas NITDA is focused on to ensure that more women obtain digital literacy and skills under the National Gender Inclusive Strategy.
Beyond NITDA’s plan to participate in the conference, the DG noted that a robust partnership between the organisations would engender meaningful opportunities and initiatives through which many more women can access digital literacy.
“Inclusivity is the key to everything we do at NITDA. We clearly defined that 40 per cent of our programmes must recognise the issue of gender. We ensure that women are adequately represented and positioned to benefit greatly from the programmes that we organise in the agency.
“We graciously accept to participate actively in that conference. Apart from acquiring skills among journalists themselves, partnership with NAWOJ will also serve as a platform through which we can also reach out to various women’s groups across the federation,” Inuwa said.
Earlier, Comrade Ibrahim commended the DG for his visionary and transformational leadership which has continued to position NITDA as the catalyst for Nigeria’s digital economy through its various programmes.
She explained that the Women in Security (WINSEC) Summit and Awards 2026 is an initiative of NAWOJ designed to promote collaboration among government institutions, security agencies, technology experts, the media, and other stakeholders to address contemporary security challenges.
According to Comrade Ibrahim, the association also aims to recognise outstanding individuals and institutions that have demonstrated excellence in security, governance, and innovation while fostering meaningful dialogue on the role of technology in building a safer and more resilient Nigeria.
“We deeply appreciate your exemplary leadership, passion for innovation, and unwavering commitment to building a digitally empowered Nigeria. We respectfully invite the agency to partner with NAWOJ in making this landmark initiative a success.
“We look forward to establishing a long-term partnership with NITDA that will empower women journalists with cutting-edge digital skills, support digital inclusion and contribute to innovation, digital literacy, and human capital development,” the NAWOJ president added.
Both organisations expressed optimism that the meeting would lay a solid foundation for a rewarding partnership agreement with specific and clearly defined objectives that will support digital inclusion and contribute to innovation, digital literacy, and human capital development.
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