Businesses globally face a “digital ceiling” when it comes to digital transformation, according to new research from Infosys Knowledge Institute, the thought leadership and research arm of Infosys, a global leader in next-generation digital services and consulting. The study reveals that businesses must change their mindsets to achieve sophisticated levels of digital maturity.
Infosys Digital Radar 2020 assessed the digital transformation efforts of companies on a Digital Maturity Index and found year-over-year progress in basic areas, such as digital initiatives to improve a company’s efficiency. However, most companies come up against a “digital ceiling” when trying to achieve the most advanced levels of maturity.
The report, which surveyed over 1,000 executives globally, ranked the most digitally advanced companies as “Visionaries”, followed by “Explorers” and then “Watchers.”
Companies know how to achieve moderate transformation success, with an 18 per cent increase in companies progressing this year from the lowest tier of Watchers to the middle Explorer tier. However, Explorers struggled to move into the top Visionary cluster, with the top tier remaining the same, indicating a “digital ceiling” to transformation efforts.
The Visionary cluster remains unchanged despite companies reporting fewer barriers to digital transformation than last year. Human, rather than technological, barriers are now the most persistent, with the two of the top hurdles being the lack of talent or skills (34 per cent) and a risk-averse corporate culture (35 per cent).
Most companies across the spectrum stated operational efficiency and increased productivity as a main transformation objective. But successful companies in the Visionary cluster are particularly motivated to make improvements for their employees. Nearly half of Visionaries describe “empowering employees” as a major business objective for transformation, compared with less than one third of Explorers and less than one fifth of Watchers.
Likewise, Visionaries have an increased focus on customer centred initiatives, being significantly more likely than other clusters to undertake transformation to improve customer experiences and engagement and in order to respond more quickly to customer needs.
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