Hitachi Data Systems has launched Taking Digital to the Next Level, a landmark study into the state of digital transformation in Australia and New Zealand. The report examines how organisations are thinking about digital transformation, how advanced they are in their adoption, what approaches they are taking and the outcomes they are seeing so far. It also includes a Digital Readiness Health Check for organisations to rate their own efforts in moving forward with a digital transformation agenda.
Key findings include:
- Digital is a well-understood concept in Australia and New Zealand, with the majority of organisations identifying it as important or critical.
- Large enterprises in Australia and New Zealand have committed to digital transformation with two-thirds of respondents already having experience with a digital transformation program.
- Organisations struggled to identify market leaders in digital transformation, indicating the term is currently being applied too broadly and is in danger of over-hyped.
- 40 per cent of respondents indicated that the results from digital projects so far were either mixed, too difficult to measure or delivered no competitive advantage.
- Competitive environment, internal culture, regulation and skills were identified as the top challenges preventing organisations from achieving their goals.
- IT and operations overshadow marketing when it comes to departments undertaking digital transformation initiatives, confirming it is more than just a means of improving customer engagement.
According to Nathan McGregor, VP of Hitachi Data Systems Australia and New Zealand, “The number one concern of most businesses is new competitors entering their market, which demonstrates an overstated fear of the so-called digital unicorns like Uber and AirBNB.
“While the presence of these disruptors brings a sense of pressure and urgency for the established enterprises to be seen to be labelling initiatives as ‘disruptive’ or ‘digital transformation’, we are finding many businesses classifying their projects as enterprise-wide transformation when in fact they are making a single process digital.
“This means enterprises are in danger of falling into complacency. However, customer expectations are growing and companies that want to grow and succeed had better increase their appetite and urgency for true transformation while there’s still time.”