Changing customer needs and expectations are putting increased pressure on businesses to prioritise investment in digital transformation, but many European organisations aren’t confident that their cloud strategy will be able to support this.
Although 65% of IT and business leaders across EMEA consider their organisations to be digital enterprises, only 43% are confident that their cloud strategy will support their digital transformation and data management initiatives over the next 12-24 months.
This is according to a new study commissioned by Deloitte and Informatica which found that 52% believe that customer service efficiency is driving technology investment and digital enterprise goals.
Currently 72% of organisations believe that a complete customer view is very important to be able to differentiate their organisations, but barriers to a complete view and digital transformation exist.
The use of multiple technology platforms was found to be the top barrier (41%) to becoming a digital enterprise, while data management issues further complicate matters. A third of organisations pointed to the need to overcome siloed data while 30% highlighted challenges with differing data formats.
While there are technology challenges, a disconnect among leaders in businesses is also creating a barrier to performance, according to 28% of respondents.
The research found that this tension is leading to business and IT leaders making new investments to improve data management and cloud strategies as they strive for faster and more accurate decision making (53%), while 45% are aiming for reduced operational costs.
Amit Walia, chief product officer, Informatica, said: “Organisations continue to experience explosive data growth. More volume and more variety of data are being drawn from enterprise applications, cloud applications, and third-party data providers.
“Together, these increase the likelihood of incomplete, inconsistent, unsecure and ungoverned data. As a result, deriving any real value is particularly challenging and achieving digital goals means an investment in new data approaches.”
Reasons for adopting new technology approaches such as cloud or hybrid data management are being fuelled by a need for faster time to value (30%) and agility (29%), over the next 12-24 months 56% of both IT and business leaders plan to take a hybrid cloud approach.
“In today’s digital landscape, it is critical that companies can provide a seamless, consistent and integrated customer experience. While IT and business leaders recognise that data management and analytics are a vital part of this, the findings of our survey show an overall lack of confidence in their companies’ digital strategies.
In order for businesses to be able to quickly and efficiently select and process relevant information, they must prioritise investing in robust data management processes. This will allow for confident, analytical decision making and effective digital transformation,” said Ben Morgan, director at Deloitte UK.
The survey is based on the responses of 132 IT and business leaders.
