KUALA LUMPUR – Dell Technologies today released results from a global study that shows organisations
are shifting their digital transformation programmes into high gear on 3 November. They are on the path to accomplish in a few months what would normally have taken them years.
The findings, updated biennially in the Dell Technologies Digital Transformation Index (DT Index), indicate organisations are accelerating transformational technology programmes during the global COVID-19 pandemic.
In one of the first global studies to measure business behaviour as a result of the pandemic, the 2020 DT Index found that eight in 10 organisations (APJ: 84 percent)have fast-tracked some digital transformation programmes this year and 79 percent (APJ: 86 percent) are re-inventing their business model.
The DT Index is a global benchmark indicating organisations’ status of digital transformation and their performance across the globe. The survey included 4,300 business leaders (C-suite to Director) from mid-size to enterprise companies across 18 countries. In APJ, 1,700 business leaders from Australia, India, Japan, mainland China, New Zealand and Singapore were surveyed.
Since the first DT Index in 2016 and the next in 2018, this year’s results track the first rise in the number of Digital Leaders (the most digitally mature organisations) globally to six percent, while APJ remained the same from 2018 at six percent.
Digital Adopters (the second most digitally mature group) grew from 23 percent in 2018 to 39 percent in 2020 both globally and in APJ – registering a 16-percentage point increase.
The DT Index also records a modest drop since 2018 in the number of Digital Laggards (the least digitally mature group) by six-percentage points both globally and in APJ, and a steep fall in the second to last group, Digital Followers, by 17-percentage points globally (APJ: 13-percentage points).
These organisations are moving up, into the Digital Adopter and Digital Evaluator groups, which have expanded in tandem. The pandemic may have catalysed digital transformation across the globe, but continuous transformation is challenging: 94 percent of organisations (APJ: 96 percent) are facing entrenched barriers to transformation.
Prior to the pandemic, business investments were strongly focused on foundational technologies, rather than emerging technologies. The vast majority, 89 percent (APJ: 92 percent) recognise that as a result of disruption this year, they need a more agile/ scalable IT infrastructure to allow for contingencies.
And recognising the importance of emerging technologies, 82 percent of respondents globally (APJ: 85 percent) envision increased usage of Augmented Reality to learn how to do or fix things in an instant; 85 percent (APJ: 88 percent) foresee organisations using Artificial Intelligence and data models to predict potential disruptions, and 78 percent (APJ: 84 percent) predict distributed ledgers – such as Blockchain – will make the gig economy fairer (by cutting out the intermediary).
Despite these findings, only 16 percent (APJ: 17 percent) are planning to invest in Virtual/Augmented Reality, just 32 percent (APJ: 40 percent) intend to invest in Artificial Intelligence, and 15 percent (APJ: 16 percent) plan to invest distributed ledgers in the next one to three years.
During July and August of 2020, Dell Technologies partnered with independent research company Vanson Bourne who surveyed 4,300 business leaders from mid-size to enterprise organisations across 18 countries, to create a global benchmark indicating businesses’ status of transformation.
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