Almost three-quarters (71%) of business leaders are aware their organisation is under threat from digital disruptors, yet many seem not to be taking the threat seriously, new research has revealed.
Businesses in the UK and Ireland are failing to prioritise the competitive threat from more agile start-up companies in their market, according to a new report published by Dell EMC.
The results show that more than half of line of business (LOB) leaders believe the IT department is a barrier to innovation, with a lack of skills and budget cited as keeping organisations from capitalising on digital transformation.
Only half of the 500 respondents across both the private and public sector see start-ups as a key challenge in their market, with almost one in ten believing they don’t have any challengers at all.
The reality is that digital disruptors have become vital players in creating a competitive environment in which few organisations, large or small, are safe from failure.
While the majority of business leaders surveyed (71%) recognise that their organisation is increasingly under threat from new forms of transformation, they are not making the connection that this transformation is being accelerated by these digital disruptors.
As a result, they need to act quickly to embrace new models and innovative technologies or risk being left behind.
Where does responsibility lie?
Historically, digital transformation would have been driven by the IT function. Yet, this research finds that just 49% believe the CIO or IT team should be responsible for driving technology innovation.
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Unfortunately, more than half (54%) feel their IT team controls too much of the technology estate to enable them to innovate.
More than four in ten agreed that they don’t have an established culture of innovation within their business, with just 27% reporting they have the skills within their organisation to support digital transformation.
Sector analysis: Manufacturing
Respondents from organisations in the manufacturing sector report that operations (65%) and engineering (58%) are areas where digital innovations will allow them to be a market differentiator and/or have a competitive advantage.
Those in the manufacturing sector say that, on average, 37.2% of their organisation’s overall innovation programme or strategy is centred on IT improvements and innovations.
When highlighting the areas they’ll focus on, manufacturers are most likely to be prioritising: security projects (62%), automation projects (58%), and cloud projects (52%)
Network security and compliance is front of mind for manufacturers – a fifth (22%) said this would be where their department will be spending the majority of their budget in the next 12months.
Almost half (49%) said that budget is one of the top three biggest barriers to their organisation implementing platforms or services that they believe will drive innovation, followed by time (28%) and risk to the business (28%).
Manufacturers consider the threat of other organisations based on the speed on innovation, rather than business size – both established brands which are innovating faster (58%) and agile start-ups offering new types of services/disruption to established business models based on new tech platforms (55%).
