Poll of 1,200 IT executives and IT personnel shows significant gap between business expectations and Digital Transformation readiness
Survey designed by Commvault and Quadrant Strategies reveals most IT personnel believe they lack the skillset, technology and bandwidth to create a Data-centric Foundation for Innovation
Survey reveals troubling lack of readiness; more than 60% of respondents think they have access to less than half of their organisations’ data
At a time when CEOs and executive boards are calling for a rapid transformation to digital business models, a worldwide study released by Commvault, a global leader in enterprise backup, recovery, archive and the cloud, and Quadrant Strategies has uncovered an alarming gap between the expectations of management and the readiness of IT organisations.
The study, ‘Measuring IT’s Readiness for Digital Business,’ a survey of 1,200 IT executives and IT personnel in six global business markets released today at Commvault Go 2017, reveals that while many executives recognise the need to be able to lead their companies through Digital Transformation, IT personnel actually feel they lack the skillset, technology and bandwidth to create the data-centric foundation required for that digital change and future innovation.
As both public and private organisations shift to become modern digital businesses, a fundamental change is occurring in the IT market, a move from an infrastructure-centric to a strategic data-centric approach. Further accelerating this is the move to multi-cloud environments, to better prevent and recover from cyberattacks, comply with new data privacy regulations, and to use analytics to generate improved business insights.
The findings of the ‘Measuring IT’s Readiness Digital Business’ study further demonstrate that with this shift a more holistic approach to data management and a data-driven strategy to drive innovation and competitive differentiation is also taking place.
Key findings of the survey include:
- The Importance of Data – More than 50% of respondents say “better data collection and management” and “new tools to analyse increasingly sophisticated data” as essential to the future success of their business.
- Lack of Access to Data – More than 60% of respondents, including IT executives and IT personnel, think they have access to less than half of their organisations’ data.
- Perception Gap – While 41% of executives believe their organisations understand and are prepared for innovation only 29% of IT personnel believe the same. Further, over a third of IT personnel think executives would feel concerned, anxious or panicked if they knew more about their IT department. While another 16% said they’d be unhappy, angry or disgusted.
- Lack of Bandwidth – Most IT executives prioritise day-to-day operations over innovation – and IT personnel follow their lead.
- Lack of Skillsets – More than 50% of IT personnel believe their roles will change radically and they will need to acquire new skills to stay relevant.
- Lack of Technology – More than two-thirds of respondents believe their organisations are not prepared for migrating data to the cloud, protecting that data, or bringing together all data in the company.
- Lack of Commitment to Putting Vision into Practice – More than 40% of companies don’t yet have a formal, proactive plan for digital transformation.
“Our ‘Measuring IT’s Readiness Digital Business’ study reveals nearly universal agreement on the importance of effectively managing data in order to innovate and accomplish the remarkable things required for creating a digital business and improving customer experience,” said N. Robert Hammer, chairman, president and CEO of Commvault.
“Meanwhile, every day we see evidence of leading-edge companies and progressive CIOs moving quickly to develop very sophisticated data management capabilities, providing the tools, time and training their teams need to be successful.”
Digital transformation is no longer a choice. Organisations must transform or die. For example, studies have shown that companies utilising data-driven insights to make strategic decisions have improved their productivity by up to 33%.
Meanwhile, progressive companies, that have transformed their business models, are future-proofing their organisations and reshaping their industries. The common theme among these companies is progressive CEOs and CIOs who recognised that a digital transformation vision was not enough. Instead, they enabled their IT organisations – through new skillsets and tools – to create a data-centric foundation that supported more cost-effective current operations while providing deeper business insights and the agility to support radical new ideas and new applications for doing business with customers.
“This survey was a statistically powerful look at how IT executives and personnel think about digital transformation and the challenges IT departments will face over the coming years. The findings were remarkably consistent across the globe, reinforcing the idea that digital transformation knows no borders,” said Afshin Mohamadi, Partner at Quadrant Strategies.
“The warning signs are very clear: while IT departments are meant to spearhead digital business; they aren’t equipped to do so. IT personnel have significant doubts about their abilities to be the agents of change. The lack of skillset, technology, and bandwidth will lead directly to major competitive challenges.
