Global senior IT leaders and decision-making managers of large companies said that their organisations have yet to fully embrace the aspects of IT Transformation needed to remain competitive.
This according to the latest study released Dell EMC, which was conducted by Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG).
According to the study, While there is a clear imperative for companies to transform their legacy IT, digital transformation is becoming the driving force to making IT Transformation a top priority.
However the ESG 2017 IT Transformation Maturity Curve study commissioned by Dell EMC shows 95 percent of survey respondents indicate their organisations are at risk of falling behind a smaller group of industry peers that are transforming their IT infrastructures, processes and delivery methods to accelerate their goals of becoming digital businesses.
Many organisations still measure application cycle times in months, if not years; have siloed infrastructures; and continue to grapple with rigid legacy architectures – all barriers to undertaking a successful digital transformation.
“These findings mirror how the vast majority of customers are telling us they need to optimise their existing infrastructures to take advantage of digital-age opportunities,” said Mohammed Amin, senior vice president, Middle East, Turkey and Africa, Dell EMC. “However, the research shows that most respondents are falling behind a small and elite set of competitors who have cracked the IT Transformation code, and they’re competing more vigorously because of it. As organisations progress in their IT Transformation investments, they can overcome the conflict between legacy IT and digital business initiatives to realise their goals, speed time to market and increase competitiveness.”
Based on the survey, a majority of respondents (71 percent) agree that IT Transformation is essential to ongoing business competitiveness. Of the “transformed” companies, 85 percent believe their organisations are in a “very strong” or “strong” position to compete and succeed in their market over the next few years contrasted with 43 percent of the least mature companies.
The “transformed” organisations report the most progress in leveraging IT resources to speed product innovation and time to market; automating manual processes and tasks; and running IT as a profit center rather than a cost centre.
The study showed that 96 percent of these companies have exceeded revenue targets last year, more than two times the least mature.
It also revealed that these organisations eight times more likely than the least mature organisations to report a highly cooperative relationship between IT and the business. In addition, these “transformed” firms have made “excellent progress” running IT as a profit centre rather than a cost centre (seven times more likely than the least mature).
John McKnight, vice president, Research and Analyst Services, Enterprise Strategy Group, said, “Companies today increasingly rely on technology to grow and improve all aspects of their business. However, ESG’s research found that fully ‘Transformed’ IT organisations are admittedly rare at this time. The good news is that there are incremental benefits to be had by making any progress along the maturity curve, which can be achieved by emulating the behaviours of these ‘Transformed’ organisations.”
