Published on the 18/03/2026 | Written by Heather Wright

Top-down directives driving tech moves…

Formal IT planning is no longer the biggest driver of new technology builds according to Gartner data. Instead, directives from CEOs and boards now account for a third of all custom technology initiatives globally, rising to 41 percent in Australia, with AI the catalyst, forcing organisations to drop traditional planning cycles and replace them with fast-turnaround, continuously shifting strategies.

Derry Finkeldey, Sydney-based Gartner VP analyst, told iStart the shift away from traditional planning cycles is clear. “We’ve seen this shift from the number one reason driving technology purchases being formal planning activities, through to it being directed from top management to align with new strategic priorities. It’s really a top-down pivot.”

“Company culture … is by far the thing that is the greatest indicator of when they’re going to adopt technology, how they adopt it and how they make decisions.”

She notes AI adoption has turned over a lot of behaviours and plans, and increased leadership attention on technology.

“More organisations are starting to realise how strategically important technology is to their organisations.”

Finkeldey says organisations are changing quickly to adjust to changing markets, with companies with faster planning cycles more closely aligned to growth.

Shorter strategic cycles were identified as a characteristic of high-growth technology companies in earlier research. These organisations operate with more agile planning rhythms and respond more rapidly to external changes.

In this context, many CIOs are being required to adapt to sudden shifts in strategic direction, triggered by top-down AI expectations and to increasingly anticipate and respond to those sudden pivots.

Finkeldey says CIOs need to understand the ‘psychographic profile’ of their organisation, as it determines how readily the rest of the organisation will get onboard with more flexible planning processes. She says CIOs need to identify and address any rules, policies or processes that obstruct more agile shifts and clearly articulate why changes to planning approaches are necessary.

Culturing success

Finkeldey says there are clear demarcations of organisations which are successful buyers or technology. “We’re seeing this company culture in relation to technology investment is by far the thing that is the greatest indicator of when they’re going to adopt technology, how they adopt it and how they make decisions.”

The cultural factor determines how strategically important an organisation believes technology is to its mission, the speed at which it moves on new initiatives, the level of governance applied and how effectively stakeholders align during decision processes. “Organisations that see technology as critical to achieving their mission behave differently from those that do not, and these differences are visible from the earliest stages of the buying journey.”

The defining question is: how strategically important is technology recognised as being to the organisation. “It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, it’s ‘does technology have that status in your organisation and what is your appetite for risk and change?’”

In organisations where technology is recognised as mission-critical, the CIOs are listened to, with their expertise valued by the executive team. “They’re often directing those strategic decisions and they have implemented governance around the decisions about the technology because they’ve effectively invested not only in the technology, but in all the considerations and processes that go along with it to make it work.”

In contrast, organisations which have not made this recognition often treat IT as an ‘order taker’ to the business, lack governance structures and experience weaker outcomes, including higher levels of buyer regret.

“You’ve got roughly just over half of organisations going into these decisions and they don’t know what they don’t know and they don’t know what to ask for.”

In good news for Australian companies, Finkeldey says Australian respondents typically have a higher proportion of the savvy, strategic tech-buying organisations – leading to better outcomes and less buyer-regret.

Twenty percent of Australian organisations did custom builds in response to customer experience and growth initiatives, compared with 17 percent globally.

“It’s not statistically significant, but it is in line with other findings in other surveys where Australian organisations have reported being driven by outward facing customer experience and growth objectives rather than just internal efficiency or operational ones.

Culture further influences the level of stakeholder alignment achieved during technology decisions. Those with strong technology cultures experience more consensus, while organisations lacking this foundation experience ‘unhealthy conflict’ characterised by disagreements on objectives or decision criteria. This directly affects decision speed and confidence.

Decision processes under pressure

The changes driven by top-down AI directives are producing practical consequences for organisations’ tech decision processes, including longer, more fragmented decisions and late discovery of essential requirements. “There’s a lot of repetition of milestones in decisions, stakeholders coming in and out of the decision who might overrule or overturn parts of the decision and recognition that ‘oh, we haven’t done a security review – yes, that happens a lot.”

Underestimating internal resource requirements with initiatives consuming a lot more resources and having a greater impact on teams than anticipated, and high levels of internal conflict are also immediate implications.

CIO priorities under the new model

Finkeldey says there are several practical actions CIOs should prioritise in this accelerated environment, including using independent sources early in the journey. Organisations relying on vendors for early learning receive ‘false signals’ which can draw them prematurely into sales-led processes.

Starting with organisational objectives – including what the organisation is trying to achieve, how technology supports the organisational goals and how success will be measured – unsurprisingly, also reduces conflict later.

Ensuring security reviews, stakeholder engagement and resource assessments are schedule early can help avoid last-minute delays, while identifying which rules or policies hinder flexible planning, and explaining the need for more adaptive approaches is also important.