While it’s no surprise that many enterprises are significantly increasing their digital investments this year, it is surprising to see that many of them expect these investments to pay for themselves on both the bottom line and top line, according to a survey released this week.
“2019: The Year of Digital Decisions,” conducted by The Economist Intelligence Unit and commissioned by IT services provider DXC Technology, looks at how organizations define digital transformation and their hopes for business results. The report found 83 percent expect their organizations to increase their investments into digital technologies this year; more than 40 percent of respondents predict their organizations will increase their investments by 11 percent or more.
More than three in four respondents expect their IT modernization to power their future transformation efforts that lead to cost savings and greater profitability. Within the next three years, companies intend to greatly ramp up their digital transformation efforts, and 58 percent expect every business unit to be digitally enabled in the next three years.
Currently, approximately half of the companies surveyed have digitally enabled just three key organizational functions, according to the research. The top barriers to digital transformation are “cost or lack of funding” and security concerns.
The survey also identified where organizations believe they stand in their digital transformation efforts, what they need to improve, and what they hope to achieve:
- Digital and business strategy formulation are completely or almost completely aligned at 72 percent of companies.
- Approximately one-third of respondents say the lack of a tech-savvy workforce is a barrier to transformation.
- Nearly three-fourths of companies agree that a change in culture is necessary to digitally transform any organization. That figure is even higher for companies in developing regions and those that have implemented digital strategies only in the past two years.
- Three-fourths of respondents say digital transformation will lead to greater agility, and 76 percent report that modern digital IT infrastructures better position their companies to produce value for their stakeholders.
