Dutch companies must act fast. The winners aren’t those with the best tech, but those who know what to invest in, what to scale, and what to stop. Clear roles, capacity insight, and sharp governance separate strategic leaders from the rest.
Dutch companies are entering a decisive phase. With D66 poised to lead the new government, the Netherlands is expected to strengthen its commitment to economic innovation and digital development. At the same time, international power dynamics are shifting. Long-trusted US partnerships have grown uncertain, and global competition is accelerating. Across Europe, the ambition to build digital sovereignty is growing. Public investment programs and regulatory efforts aim to close the gap with global tech leaders. But political ambitions won’t solve what’s happening in boardrooms.
For Dutch enterprises, the imperative is clear: advance and innovate with intent or fall behind.
Corporate leadership must take the initiative and take informed, decisive actions. Where should we place our next bet? Every boardroom is balancing a long list of initiatives, requests, and unmet demands. But budgets are fixed, and execution capacity is tight. Leaders must decide – fast – what to invest in, what to scale up, and what to stop altogether. The cost of hesitation or misalignment is rising. For example, ChatGPT was released in November 2022. It had 1,000,000 users within five days, and within one year, more than 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies were using it professionally. The window of opportunity is becoming smaller, and the risk of being a laggard is increasing.
However, these decisions cannot be made in silos. They require IT and business to work from a shared view of what matters. In practice, this means having a transparent and integrated demand management approach—one that enables joint prioritization, avoids duplicated efforts, and aligns decisions to strategy. However, many organizations still struggle to establish this setup.
CIOs from across industries describe a common pattern: too many demands, not enough clarity. Often, teams waste time assessing initiatives that will never be implemented. Others get fast-tracked based on internal pressure, not on value. As one manufacturing CIO put it, “Without clear responsibilities and a joint prioritization with the business, IT stays reactive, misaligned, and overwhelmed”.
What makes the difference? First, role clarity. Success requires clearly defined responsibilities in both IT and business—especially when working in agile or federated structures. Without this, teams fall into the trap of “everyone owns it, no one decides.” Second, transparency on capacity. Knowing what can realistically be delivered – given that 70-80 percent of IT capacity is already bound to operations – is critical for making the right trade-offs. And third, a lightweight governance setup. Oversized steering committees and complex approval layers slow down decision-making and dilute ownership. Companies must learn to act with focus.
In the end, success won’t go to those with the best technology stack – it will go to those who make the right decisions, fast. The organizations that win are those that understand their business deeply, steer with facts and trust, and commit resources to what will truly drive value.
Dutch companies have the capability and talent to lead. The opportunity now is to strengthen how they decide – what to fund, what to scale, and what to walk away from.
For CIO reflections, practical structures, and decision models, read the full report (direct download):
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