Four in every five organisations globally — one in every 12 in Asia Pacific as well as in Singapore — have fast-tracked some digital transformation programmes this year and are re-inventing their business model, Dell Technologies’ 2020 Digital Transformation Index shows.
Conducted by Vanson Bourne, the latest of the biennial survey covered 4,300 business leaders from mid-size to enterprise companies across 18 countries, including 200 from Singapore.
This third edition of the DT Index tracks the rise in the number of Digital Leaders (the most digitally mature organisations) to 6% globally. Digital Adopters (the second most digitally mature group) has grown from 23% in 2018 to 39% in 2020 globally.
In Singapore, the number of Digital Leaders remained the same from 2018, at 4%. The number of Digital Adopters in Singapore, grew from 13% to 36%.
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 globally and in Singapore by 12-percentage points.
The pandemic may have catalysed digital transformation across the globe, but continuous transformation is challenging as 94% of organisations globally (97% in Singapore) are facing entrenched barriers to transformation.
Globally, the top-3 barriers to digital transformation success are data privacy and cybersecurity concerns (up from 5th place in 2016); lack of budget and resources (#1 in 2016, #2 in 2018); and unable to extract insights from data and/or information overload (a jump of eight places since 2016).
In Singapore, the top barriers to digital transformation success are data privacy and cybersecurity concerns, and lack of budget and resources (#2 and #1 in 2018 respectively); unable to extract insights from data and/or information overload (#4 in 2018); and lack of right in-house skill sets and expertise (#3 in 2018).
Before the pandemic, business investments were strongly focused on foundational technologies, rather than emerging technologies. The vast majority, 89% (93% in Singapore) recognise that as a result of disruption this year, they need a more agile/ scalable IT infrastructure to allow for contingencies.
Top technology investments globally for the next one to three years are cybersecurity (43%); data management tools (39%); 5G infrastructure (37%); privacy software (35%); and multi-cloud environment (35%). In Singapore, top technology investments are data management tools (48%); cybersecurity (47%); 5G infrastructure (37%); privacy software (37%); and artificial intelligence algorithms (37%).
