Only one in five executives say their business models have the agility to address digitization, including the integration of new technologies like artificial intelligence, a new report by Montreal-based IT consulting firm CGI found.
The promises of digital transformation and AI have been the talk of the town for businesses of all sizes, but adoption continues to be met with challenges. At least 40 per cent of the surveyed executives point to legacy systems as among the key barriers to successful digitization.
Over 90 per cent interviewed executives, however, affirmed that they do have digital strategies in place, with 31 per cent now extending those strategies to their external ecosystems. But only 30 per cent of these executives say that their organizations are producing expected results from their digital strategies; these organizations are identified as the digital leaders.
Digital leaders are ahead of their peers in the following areas, CGI revealed:
- Aligning and integrating business and IT
- Increasing business model agility to adapt to digitization
- Extending strategies for digitization, data and cybersecurity to external ecosystems
- Experiencing fewer challenges from their legacy systems and cultural change
CGI revealed a correlation between business model agility and digital strategy results. The executives rating their organizations’ business model agility as very high are three times more likely to produce expected results from their digital strategies.
“The gap between those organizations with a digital strategy and those producing results is clear evidence that we are still in the ‘early days’ of the holistic digitization of organizations—and society at large,” said François Boulanger, CGI president and chief operating officer (COO). “Many of the executives we spoke with cited the challenging economic environment as a key driver for sharpening their focus on the most critical digital initiatives that will deliver the highest financial returns and drive resiliency.”
Over 65 per cent of executives do, however, recognize that digitization is having a high impact on their organizations. Many are focusing on data strategy, which they are extending across their value chain and partners. Across all executives interviewed, the most common areas of investment for improving data strategy are improving data quality (83 per cent) and data management and governance (83 per cent).
For this report, CGI interviewed a total of 1,764 business and IT executives in 21 economic sectors.