Is digital transformation in Canada starting to pick up? A new Canadian study, from Vanson Bourne and Dell Technologies, seems to indicate improving fortunes. The survey covers Director to C Suite, and includes mid-size to enterprise organizations. The aim of the survey is to assess the extent that the pandemic has placed technology front and centre of businesses’ recovery in 2020.
The research shows that businesses recognize the need for digitsal transformation, with 89 percent of Canadian businesses recognizing they need a more agile/scalable IT infrastructure to allow for business continuity. Based on this figure, it is perhaps unsurprising that 71 percent of Canadian businesses are investing in on-demand digital services. However, less than half of businesses (at 40 percent) have fully completed their latest round of investment or are in the mature stages of investing.
This figure perhaps explains why only 34 percent of companies were able to say that having the right technologies to work at the speed of business enabled them to successfully accelerate in 2020.
The general trend is that Canadian businesses are rising to the occasion, accelerating their digital transformation efforts and achieving in a few short months, what would normally take them years.
In relation to this, the survey has found that over three quarters of Canadian businesses have fast-tracked at least some digital transformation programs this year. However, this acceleration has come with challenges according to Canada’s Directors and C Suite executives.
Perhaps the most significant challenge is with some businesses hit by a short-term longevity, with 28 percent of Canadian respondents revealed they fear their organization won’t exist in a couple of years. On the plus side, 61 percent of Canadian businesses believe they will survive the pandemic.The price for survival is that many expect to shed jobs and thye acknowledge it will take years to return to profitability.
The faster pace of change does not necessarily indicate that challenges have dissipated. Almost all (96 percent) of firms are facing entrenched barriers to transformation including lack of budget and resources (44 percent), data privacy and cybersecurity concerns (37 percent) and with being unable to extract valuable insights from data or suffering from information overload (29 percent).
As a result of acceleration, Dell is seeing a substantive, measurable progress in Canada when it comes to digital transformation in 2020, with a growing number of Canadian businesses classifying themselves as ‘digital adopters’,at 36 percent (up from 29 percent based on a previous survey). Conseqently, fewer companies see themselves as ‘digital followers’ or ‘digital laggards’.
