Orlando, Oct 24 (IANS): In the past four years, 90 per cent of enterprises have experienced a turn that upset normal operations and only a quarter of enterprises are "fit" enough to come out ahead of the turn, said a new survey by Gartner on Thursday.

Gartner analysts presented the survey findings during 'Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo', which is taking place here till Thursday. The survey separated CIO respondents' enterprises into two groups, "fit" and "fragile," depending on how they fared in their last turns.

The march to digitalisation is so commonplace today that 40 per cent of global Chief Information Officers (CIOs) have reached scale for their digital endeavours, more than doubling the proportion of enterprises from 2018, according to Gartner's annual global survey of CIOs.

"You can't read much about business today without coming across the word 'disruption', especially market, economic, trade and political," Andy Rowsell-Jones, Vice President and Analyst at Gartner, said in a statement.

"Uncertainty has become the watch word for business leaders. Being digital is no longer enough to manage changing business conditions. We're seeing most enterprises optimise existing business models for today's environment, rather than thinking about preparing for the next turn, leaving them exposed when the next crisis hits," Rowsell-Jones added.

The next challenge CIOs face in the coming two to three years is looming disruptions, such as an economic recession or data breach, which will force them to take action if they wish to emerge stronger on the other side of a "turn".

Fit enterprises emerged from their turns stronger in capabilities such as funding business initiatives and attracting the right talent, while fragile enterprises emerged less capable in these areas.

Fit enterprises, on average, also increased their revenue by 5 per cent per annum over the past three years, faster than the 3.5 per cent per annum revenue increase for their fragile peers.