Gartner’s Top CIO Challenges: Application Modernization That Delivers
Inspired by Gartner’s 2025 CIO themes and stats; adapted for action.
CIOs are being pushed to do two things at once: move faster and prove impact. Gartner’s latest guidance highlights five persistent pressure points for 2025—growth optimization, data/AI, application modernization, cost optimization, and business value realization. The common thread? Legacy constraints and siloed data are slowing everything down.
This blog distills those Gartner takeaways and shows how Lingk’s platform and Agent services help CIOs modernize pragmatically, get AI-ready, and demonstrate value—without ballooning costs or timelines.
1. Evolve the Operating Model for Growth—Start with Integration Flow & Delivery
Gartner notes that a majority of strategy leaders see legacy operating models as misaligned with current and future objectives. In plain terms: if your delivery model still assumes hand-built, point-to-point integrations and project-by-project firefighting, you’re set up to miss the speed, governance, and visibility your business now expects.
How Lingk helps
Modern integration operating model: Lingk modernizes how integrations are designed, delivered, and run—so IT can accelerate business process automation.
Guided Digital Labor Integration Services: An extension of your team, Lingk employs Forward Deployed Engineers (FDE’s) as expert human oversight using AI Integration Agents — to accelerate client project delivery, reduce data quality errors, generate data mappings, integration recipes and blueprints — while eliminating brittle custom work.
Program-level visibility: Status, dependencies, and outcomes roll up cleanly (including optional sync to project tools like Asana and Jira), so leadership sees progress beyond a single project.
Outcome: A service-optimized operating model that scales, supports growth initiatives, and frees scarce engineering capacity.
2. Make Data AI-Ready—Before You Scale AI
Gartner underscores a critical gap: organizations with AI-ready data report materially better business outcomes, yet most say they either don’t have AI-ready data or aren’t sure. That uncertainty is expensive—Gartner expects many AI projects to miss SLAs or stall when foundational data readiness isn’t in place.
How Lingk helps
Unified, AI-ready data foundation: Lingk connects ERP, SIS, CRM, HCM, LMS, data lakes/warehouses, and line-of-business apps into a governed, analytics-friendly fabric.
Data Management & Governance built-in: Standardized schemas, enterprise data dictionaries and catalogs, controlled transformations, auto lineage, and validation rules ensure accuracy and trust. Role-based policies, metadata management and usage context keep models and dashboards aligned to intended use.
Faster time to value for AI: When your source-to-consumption pathways are automated and standardized, model training, feature stores, and BI run on clean, current, governed data.
Outcome: Predictable AI delivery and analytics that stakeholders actually adopt.
3. Modernize the Application Portfolio—Choose the Right Path, Per App
Gartner flags that well over half of enterprise apps show technical or business fit issues—outdated tech, scalability limits, clunky workflows, rising security exposure. Modernization isn’t one-size-fits-all; it spans five patterns: rehost, replatform, rearchitect, rebuild, and replace.
How Lingk helps
Integration-first modernization: We decouple systems via APIs and event streams, so you can upgrade or swap apps without breaking downstream processes.
Support for all five paths:
Rehost/Replatform: Stabilize interfaces and data pipelines as you lift and shift to new infrastructure or cloud platforms.
Rearchitect: Introduce domain-driven services and eventing while maintaining continuity for critical data flows.
Rebuild: Rapidly stand up greenfield integrations and migrate clean data sets to the new application.
Replace: “Drop and shop” without operational disruption, thanks to prebuilt connectors and reusable integration recipes.
Post–go-live modernization: Lingk specializes in moving organizations away from brittle flat-file handoffs to robust, scalable iPaaS patterns that are easier to support and evolve.
Outcome: Low risk modernization, faster cutovers, and a portfolio that’s lower cost to run and easier to evolve.
4. Shift Spend from Tactical to Strategic—Pay for Outcomes, Not Hours
Gartner’s guidance stresses that top CIOs treat cost optimization as a capability, not a one-time cut. The goal is to reduce waste, improve performance, and reallocate savings to innovation.
How Lingk helps
Outcome-based services pricing: Instead of open-ended services hours, Lingk prices around delivering integrated target objects (e.g., an integration or integration design that is scheduled or triggered for execution). You pay for results that move the needle.
Automation that sticks: AI Agents automate discovery/design, cutting cycle time and rework—and those savings compound across projects.
Right-sized delivery: Use Lingk across all phases (Discovery, Design, Development, QA, UAT, Go-Live) or selectively—so budgets map to business priorities.
Portfolio-level ROI: Consolidated visibility into delivery speed, incident reduction, and data quality improvements supports ongoing resource decisions.
Outcome: Strategic cost discipline with a clear line from spend to measurable outcomes.
5. Prove and Communicate Business Value—Continuously
Gartner emphasizes the growing expectation to show value from technology investment—especially AI. If stakeholders can’t connect initiatives to outcomes, IT looks like a cost center.
How Lingk helps
Value-tracking baked in: Define KPIs (e.g., cycle-time reduction, data error rates, lead-to-enrollment/quote-to-cash speed, revenue impact) at the integration level.
From integration to impact: Tie integrations and workflow automations to the business processes they power—admissions, onboarding, procurement, revenue ops, student/customer experience—so value is visible.
Dashboards leaders understand: Roll up delivery, data quality, and business metrics into exec-friendly views.
Faster wins, faster stories: Prebuilt integration patterns, data flows and connectors mean you can launch small, de-risked slices that demonstrate value quickly, then scale.
Outcome: A credible, repeatable mechanism to communicate value and sustain sponsorship.
Why CIOs Choose Lingk Now
Platform + Experts: A modern iPaaS+ platform and a seasoned services team utilizing AI Agents that functions as an extension of IT.
Fewer silos, more speed: Unified data flows and automated delivery close the gap between “idea” and “in-production.”
Future-proof approach: Event-driven patterns, reusable recipes, and clean data pipelines set you up for AI adoption and analytics at enterprise scale.
Measured outcomes: Pricing, planning, and reporting all map to real business results—so you can fund what works.
Getting Started with Lingk
Start with the Platform
Choose your Lingk Integration Platform plan. We size it by your estimated data processing hours/year (how often integrations run per day and per week). The platform is the foundation for all Lingk solutions.Tell us your Target Objects (integration recipes)
Share how many integrations you want delivered. We price Digital Labor as a one-time, outcome-based fee per Integrated Target Object, with volume discounts at higher counts.(Optional) Add Data Management
If you want governance, analytics, lineage, and consumption forecasting, add Data Management users. This add-on extends the Lingk Platform to enable powerful metadata management.Preview costs & ROI
Use the pricing calculator to model frequency (runs/day, days/week), number of Target Objects, and users. Get an instant estimate and download your ROI report.Kick off delivery
Lingk’s platform and services are designed to take on the entire integration lifecycle: Discovery → Design → Development → QA → UAT → Go-Live.
About Lingk
Lingk is a leader in data integration, providing an award-winning iPaaS, groundbreaking Integration Agents, and enterprise-level managed services to institutions and organizations. Lingk’s platform unifies data with dynamic pipelines and metadata management — empowering enterprises to achieve seamless data connectivity and unified analytics for transforming new system implementations, business process automation and AI initiatives.
