IT spending is increasing, but efficiency is becoming the goal



Business teams are demanding automation and greater adoption of low-code and no-code solutions. /NIST

Business leaders want more IT and have increased their IT investments to $11.7 million on average, according to the 8th annual report by MuleSoft. The 1,050 respondents surveyed around the world hold a management position in an IT department of an organization with at least 1,000 employees.

Here is the summary of the 2023 MuleSoft Connectivity Benchmark Report:


  • IT is increasingly productive as leaders invest in efficiency. Today’s leaders want more IT and have increased their IT investments to $11.7 million on average. IT is better able to respond to business demands, as more and more CIOs manage to complete all the projects assigned to them the previous year.


  • The cost of digital transformation failure is higher than ever. Although most organizations are now on board with the digital transformation movement, the stakes of this transformation have never been higher. An average organization could lose up to $9.5 million if it fails to complete its transformation initiatives.

  • Integration challenges remain as the volume of applications increases. Integration challenges are blocking digital transformation as enterprises add more apps to their ecosystem (1,061 on average vs. 976 in 2022). Those that turn to custom integration to solve these problems are paying a high price ($4.7 million per year).


  • Customers now expect connected experiences. More than a third (36%) of organizations deliver a fully connected user experience across all channels, an increase of 30% in 2022. However, integrating user experiences remains a challenge for many organizations.


  • Business teams demand automation. Automation adoption is on the rise. Most CIOs centrally manage (67%) and track (59%) automation work, but as more non-IT roles demand automation, organizations are turning to no-code tools and approaches to answer the question.



  • APIs help maximize savings and revenue. APIs are the key to digital transformation. They streamline development and generate 38% of an average company’s revenue. Among companies ahead of their digital transformation forecast, 93% have a clear API integration strategy.

And here are 25 key takeaways from the responses of 1,050 CIOs:

Leaders invest in efficiency

  1. The IT infrastructure is increasingly streamlined. Half of respondents say it is difficult to make changes (54%) or introduce new technology (54%), up from 74% and 70% last year respectively.

  2. CIOs are better able to deliver projects on time. Almost half (48%) say they have completed all the projects asked of them, up from 44% the previous year. There is also a decrease in the average number of projects delivered late – 30% this year compared to 52% last year.

  3. Organizations spent an average of $11.7 million on IT staff over the past 12 months. Most (78%) say these IT budgets will continue to grow in the coming year.

  4. The volume of IT projects continues to increase. With this increased investment, business leaders expect more from their CIOs. As a result, the number of projects requested from IT increased by 41% year over year, about the same increase as the previous year (40%).

The cost of digital transformation failure is higher than ever

  1. Customer experience is a key indicator of an organization’s success. Almost three-quarters (72%) of customer interactions are now digital.

  2. 69% of organizations say they are ahead of the game when it comes to digital transformation. Only 10% say they are behind their expectations.

  3. The cost of failure has increased dramatically. Organizations could lose $9.5 million on average if they fail in their digital transformation initiatives, up from $6.8 million in 2022.

  4. Despite this progress, CIOs face technology and process challenges that stand in the way of their digital transformation. Siled application and data integration (36%), lack of skills and experience (36%), risk and compliance (36%), talent recruitment/retention (34%) and existing infrastructure (34%) is listed as a barrier.


MuleSoft 2023 Connectivity Benchmark Report

The main obstacles to digital transformation persist. MuleSoft Report 2023

Integration Challenges Remain as Application Volume Explodes

  1. Application growth continues. Companies use on average 1,061 different applications. And only 29% of these applications are integrated.

  2. The cost of application integration is rising. Organizations spent an average of $4.7 million on custom onboarding work in the past 12 months, up from $3.6 million in 2022.

  3. Onboarding hinders digital transformation for 80% of organizations. This figure rises to 90% for organizations lagging behind their planned digital transformation progress.

  4. Significant data integration challenges. These include incorporating information into user-facing applications (77%), moving data from source systems to the data warehouse (75%), and reusing data sources in different user-facing applications ( 72%).

Customers now expect connected experiences

  1. More than half (54%) of companies struggle with integrating end-user experiences. This figure is even higher among organizations that have lagged in their digital transformation progress (74%).

  2. Companies strive to improve customer engagement and satisfaction. More than a third (36%) say they offer a fully connected user experience across all channels – up from 30% in 2022.

  3. The integration of user experiences is beneficial. They increase customer engagement (56%), provide better visibility into operations (53%) and drive innovation (51%).

  4. Work on user experiences faces challenges. More than half (54%) of CIOs say it’s difficult to integrate end-user experiences. This figure rises to 74% among organizations that are behind on planned progress in digital transformation. The most common challenges are outdated IT infrastructure (41%), security and governance (40%), lack of automation (40%) and legacy integrations (38%).

Business teams demand automation

  1. More and more companies are automating their processes to ensure efficient growth. As a result, RPA adoption is increasing across the enterprise – 33% of organizations plan to invest in RPA, up from 13% two years ago.

  2. The DSI is in pole position on automation work. As automation becomes a key part of transformation, CIOs are responsible for centrally managing (67%) and tracking (59%) automations.

  3. Automation is coming to business departments. A number of business departments need automation tools to get their jobs done, including data science (64%), product (62%) and business analytics (61%) teams.

  4. Automation is an aspect of digital transformation where the CIO has leadership. Developers (72%), IT operations (65%) and app administrators (49%) are most often responsible for automating business processes. In most organizations, automations are also managed (67%) and tracked (59%) centrally by IT.


  5. Integration and automation, sinews of war in the CIO / business relationship. 92% of organizations say that at least one business department requires both integration and automation.

APIs help maximize savings and revenue

  1. Almost all organizations (99%) use public/private APIs. They are most often used to develop processes for new projects (53%) and for integrations (53%).

  2. More than half (56%) of companies say they have a mature API strategy. By mature, the authors mean APIs that allow users of business departments to easily integrate applications and data sources by themselves.

  3. APIs support self-service computing capabilities in 52% of organizations (up from 35% in 2018). This shows that APIs can save organizations money and boost efficiency.

To learn more about the MuleSoft Connectivity Benchmark Report 2023, you can check here.


Source: “ZDNet.com”





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