As the lightspeed-adoption of AI propels an already-frenzied pace of digital business, and a murky economy threatening to get even worse, today’s execs know the risks of falling behind in their transformation efforts. New research from DX solutions firm Insight Enterprises affirms that business leaders worldwide understand they need to invest in digitalization to meet a new innovation imperative—a bigger threat, many say, than an impending recession.
According to the firm’s newly commissioned 2023 Insight Intelligent Technology Report, with research partner IDC, over eight in 10 (82 percent) leaders say companies must invest in digital transformation or be left behind, while about half (49 percent) 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 percent) identify inflation and the potential of an economic recession.
Organizational priorities and threats challenging digital business acceleration:
The research 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 at Insight, in a news release. “Now, generative AI has created even more urgency for executives to ready their businesses to stay ahead of their competition in the AI race.”
Key findings from the survey:
- 52 percent said operational resilience is one of the greatest challenges organizations need to overcome in the next year, along with cybersecurity (56 percent).
- 34 percent plan to invest in digital transformation in the next 12 months to scale distribution and monetization of products and services; 33 percent intend to achieve deeper digitalization of customer experiences.
- Most organizations see the need to become a digital business—with 61 percent saying they expect to see impactful return on investment from it by 2024.
- The greatest digital transformation hurdles include data privacy/security concerns (53 percent), lack of essential technology skills (39 percent), and insufficient resources for change management (39 percent). All these challenges will become even more acute as companies determine how to implement more complex technologies like generative AI.
- Nearly half (49 percent) of digital transformation project failures were due to IT infrastructure integration challenges; 46 percent also claim legacy technology / technical debt is holding back their organizational strategy.
- 48 percent 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,,” said Adrian Gregory, EMEA president of Insight, in the release. “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.”
Download the full report here.
IDC fielded the survey between January and March 2023. The sample consisted of n=1,000 respondents. The study targeted senior business leaders working in large commercial businesses with 1,000+ employees, across all industry segments. It also targeted senior decision makers in public sector organizations with 250+ employees. Quotas were set by country: n=300 completes in North America, inclusive of the U.S. and Canada, and n=100 completes in each of the following: Spain, Italy, France, UK, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The margin of error for the total sample of n=1,000 is +/-3% at the 95% confidence level.
