Despite increased scrutiny of technology investments, new era of innovation calls for a digital-first mindset among companies worldwide
According to an IDC InfoBrief and survey commissioned by Insight Enterprises, a Fortune 500 Solutions Integrator focused on driving client success through digital transformation, business leaders worldwide understand they need to invest in digital transformation to meet a new innovation imperative, despite ongoing macroeconomic pressures and an increasingly uncertain, competitive business environment.
- Over eight in 10 (82%) say companies must invest in digital transformation or be left behind.
- Nearly half (49%) say the ability to keep up with technological innovation compared to competitors is one of the greatest threats to their organizations over the next 12 months, while only two in 10 (20%) identify inflation and the potential of an economic recession.
“Now, generative AI has created even more urgency for executives to ready their businesses to stay ahead of their competition in the AI race.”
The 2023 Insight Intelligent Technology Report, an IDC InfoBrief, was designed to garner insights on how ongoing uncertainty in the global economy and continued geopolitical tensions, among other business challenges, are influencing digital investments among senior business leaders. The data represents insights from 1,000 business leaders around the world at enterprise-level organizations with 1,000 employees or more.
“The number one question I get from clients is: How can I ensure my company will exist in a few years? Companies have been trying for years to address legacy system fragility and optimizing the business through deeper digitization to increase productivity, gain share of constricted markets and shore up organizational resiliency,” said Matt Jackson, global chief technology officer, Insight. “Now, generative AI has created even more urgency for executives to ready their businesses to stay ahead of their competition in the AI race.”
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Key findings from the survey reveal that:
- 52% said operational resilience is one of the greatest challenges organizations need to overcome in the next year, along with cybersecurity (56%).
- 34% plan to invest in digital transformation in the next 12 months to scale distribution and monetization of products and services; 33% intend to achieve deeper digitalization of customer experiences.
- Most organizations see the need to become a digital business — with 61% saying they expect to see impactful return on investment from it by 2024.
- The greatest digital transformation hurdles include data privacy/security concerns (53%), lack of essential technology skills (39%), and insufficient resources for change management (39%). All these challenges will become even more acute as companies determine how to implement more complex technologies like generative AI.
- Nearly half (49%) of digital transformation project failures was due to IT infrastructure integration challenges; 46% also claim legacy technology / technical debt is holding back their organizational strategy.
- 48% of respondents said C-Suite scrutiny of digital initiatives has increased at organizations over the past year.
“Executives need to change the way they think about ROI if they truly want to become a digital business. They must be intentional about being agile, shifting the cost of investment from CapEx to OpEx to create an environment for continuous innovation and deploying technology quickly to gain a competitive advantage. If they don’t, another company will,” said Adrian Gregory, EMEA president, Insight.
