UK firms will lose out on profits by ignoring technologies critical to customer engagement and market development.
Just 33% of UK firms believe web-based applications and services are essential, 27% see mobile technology as critical and just 14% thought the same of wearable technology.
And nearly one in ten of UK companies do not believe the IoT will be applicable to their customer engagement.
Ritu Mahandru, VP of application delivery at CA Technologies which surveyed 1,400 global businesses said the findings showed that UK organisations are making good progress when it comes to digital transformation, but they must up their game if they want to compete more effectively in the application economy
She told CBR: "To stay ahead in the application economy, companies need to disrupt their traditional organisation structures, processes and systems."
Mahandru also said that DevOps and agile software methods are a must for digital disruptors.
"Research has shown that Digital Disrupters are 3.8 times more likely to strongly agree that in addition to their core business, they are also now a software company."
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He said that businesses also need to focus on modern delivery methods and adopt a more coherent and collaborative approach within IT.
Development and operational teams need to work closely together to develop applications that are user friendly and innovative.
"Digital Disrupters are 2.5 times more likely to have agile development techniques and methodologies in place than mainstream organisations and to have broadly implemented DevOps."
The study "Exploiting the Software Advantage: Lessons from Digital Disrupters", found 56% of UK organisations are executing some coordinated digital transformation initiatives mostly around workforce efficiency (48%), product and service development (43%) and operations and delivery (43%).
The firm said the findings showed digital transformation benefits, with 86% of all respondents who had undertaken projects saying they have seen or anticipate seeing growth in revenue and 85% seeing or expecting increased customer retention.
