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1 Out of 3 Companies Underprepared for Digital Transformation

Daniel Mayo

One third (33 percent) of enterprises globally are underprepared for “digital transformation” – the process of replacing legacy networks and dedicated service platforms with a coherent digital environment that is flexible, cost-effective, and capable of delivering changes rapidly and dynamically – according to Ovum's ICT Enterprise Insights report for 2017.

The research also revealed that while 60 percent believe their organization’s process of digital transformation is “well advanced” or “in progress,” only 7 percent believe it to be complete.

Respondents from the financial services sector demonstrated the most confidence in enabling digital transformation, with 60 percent of enterprise IT decision makers in this industry believing the process to be “well advanced” or “in progress.” Of these organizations, retail banks claim to be the most advanced (45 percent), followed by payments, insurance and financial markets (40 percent). By contrast, respondents from the retail sector considered their industry the least prepared for digital transformation. In the public sector, 38 percent of respondents thought their sector was experiencing some or significant disruption to services from digital technologies, only 29 percent thought their own organization was affected.

The uneven maturity of digital transformation by industry and country has created a complex landscape for sales teams to navigate, but our data plays a significant role in quantifying for our customers their target markets’ investment appetite and timescales. This enables them to quickly and confidently make decisions about where to focus their go-to-market and product investments.

In addition to this, the study indicated that while IT spend is growing globally, the top 3 regions where spend is increasing most rapidly are South Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America, with North America, Western Europe and Australia showing the slowest increase in spend.

The new study closely examined the process of digital transformation currently taking place within enterprises today, and found many are struggling with omnichannel customer/citizen engagement, predominantly focused on online/mobile channels to date. 30 percent of enterprises are only at the early or not-started stages, while 25 percent of enterprises claim to be at least well advanced in this area.

Ovum’s ICT Enterprise Insights report provides insight for Ovum clients to help determine which industry in each market region is best prepared for digital transformation, how enterprises in their target vertical markets are prioritizing their IT and communication investment, and how much IT budgets are expected to increase or decrease for their target customers in 2017.

Methodology: Ovum’s ICT Enterprise Insights 2017 is based on the world’s largest annual IT decision-maker survey, covering 7,000+ enterprises across 62 countries, 80 technologies and 15 industries.

Daniel Mayo is Director of IT, Data & Tools at Ovum.

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1 Out of 3 Companies Underprepared for Digital Transformation

Daniel Mayo

One third (33 percent) of enterprises globally are underprepared for “digital transformation” – the process of replacing legacy networks and dedicated service platforms with a coherent digital environment that is flexible, cost-effective, and capable of delivering changes rapidly and dynamically – according to Ovum's ICT Enterprise Insights report for 2017.

The research also revealed that while 60 percent believe their organization’s process of digital transformation is “well advanced” or “in progress,” only 7 percent believe it to be complete.

Respondents from the financial services sector demonstrated the most confidence in enabling digital transformation, with 60 percent of enterprise IT decision makers in this industry believing the process to be “well advanced” or “in progress.” Of these organizations, retail banks claim to be the most advanced (45 percent), followed by payments, insurance and financial markets (40 percent). By contrast, respondents from the retail sector considered their industry the least prepared for digital transformation. In the public sector, 38 percent of respondents thought their sector was experiencing some or significant disruption to services from digital technologies, only 29 percent thought their own organization was affected.

The uneven maturity of digital transformation by industry and country has created a complex landscape for sales teams to navigate, but our data plays a significant role in quantifying for our customers their target markets’ investment appetite and timescales. This enables them to quickly and confidently make decisions about where to focus their go-to-market and product investments.

In addition to this, the study indicated that while IT spend is growing globally, the top 3 regions where spend is increasing most rapidly are South Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America, with North America, Western Europe and Australia showing the slowest increase in spend.

The new study closely examined the process of digital transformation currently taking place within enterprises today, and found many are struggling with omnichannel customer/citizen engagement, predominantly focused on online/mobile channels to date. 30 percent of enterprises are only at the early or not-started stages, while 25 percent of enterprises claim to be at least well advanced in this area.

Ovum’s ICT Enterprise Insights report provides insight for Ovum clients to help determine which industry in each market region is best prepared for digital transformation, how enterprises in their target vertical markets are prioritizing their IT and communication investment, and how much IT budgets are expected to increase or decrease for their target customers in 2017.

Methodology: Ovum’s ICT Enterprise Insights 2017 is based on the world’s largest annual IT decision-maker survey, covering 7,000+ enterprises across 62 countries, 80 technologies and 15 industries.

Daniel Mayo is Director of IT, Data & Tools at Ovum.

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According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...