Software AG released the global ‘Situation Report’ based on responses from IT Leaders on their views around digital transformation investment strategies. The global COVID pandemic served as a dramatic backdrop for a year of innovation and digitalization in businesses around the globe. Almost all IT directors surveyed said their company went through digital transformation efforts in 2020, and they expect it to continue in 2021.
The research highlighted some priorities and assumptions that companies have in common, and some areas where opinion is divided on the best way forward.
IT leaders were unanimous in their belief that digital transformation is expected to accelerate significantly over the next few years with entities set out to continue investing across data and analytics, quicker processes, customer experience and integration. The predicted growth is attributed to technology implementation strategies in line with goals that include cost efficiency, customer experience, security, employee safety and environmental policy.
The interviewee companies strongly believed that their IT infrastructure and business is resilient, with a split in companies that considered to diversify their technology portfolio and those that preferred consolidating on technologies. A large majority of experts also stated that innovation will play a key role and technologies such as Cloud computing, 5G, Integration, IoT will be vital in tackling challenges as economies move towards a more digital future. In terms of the beneficiary of digital investments, customers, employees and ‘the business’ were all cited as top priority. Simultaneously IT leaders also predicted customer expectations to rise in the next year, given the digital shift new technologies have caused, resulting in a new kind of modern customer.
Commenting on the report, Rami Kichli, Vice-President, Gulf and Levant, Software AG said “The UAE Vision 2021 aims to transition the country into a technology-based knowledge economy as it embraces innovation expeditiously. In 2020, despite the challenges, Software AG grew 40% given the rapid surge in demand for business resiliency through digital. This is a reflection of the country’s emphasis on a digital first approach”
“We therefore continue to see an increase in digital transformation spends through 2021. As the report communicates, 2021 will bring the next wave of hyper-digitalization and enterprises will reset goals and adopt agility. Regional entities will sustain transformation journeys leaning strongly towards digitizing core processes and systems, building resilient operations, driving towards a data-driven decision-making culture. As leaders in enterprise software, we intend to support entities in the GCC in their continued effort to embrace innovation towards rapidly changing customer expectations.”
Vijay Jaswal CTO- Middle East and Turkey for Software AG stated, “While the research was carried out in some countries, these trends are prevalent and applicable in our region too. Unfortunately, it took some to face the pandemic to realize the value that transformation brings, while many were already equipped to handle the storm. In fact, we must applaud all the government departments whose services were resilient due their agile approach to business. Additionally, they have factored in the oncoming generational change and therefore are already ahead of times. These trends are therefore to stay not only in 2021 but for a few years to come.”
Of the technologies essential in 2021, global IT leaders listed the following as areas of focus: Cloud computing (67%), 5G (51%), AI (43%) and Integration (43%).
