One of the top barriers to digital transformation according to finance, HR, and IT leaders is the widening gap between business needs and digital strategies, said Workday recently when releasing results of a survey.
The survey collected responses from 1,150 global senior business leaders in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific region across 13 industries between August and November 2021 to understand the pace of digital transformation over the course of the past two years and the biggest barriers to success, the technology company noted.
The findings revealed that 55% of respondents say their digital strategy is always or often outpaced by the demands of the business though finance, HR, and IT leaders recognise the importance of digital transformation.
In response, leaders are adopting a more sustained approach to transformation by prioritising access to data and employee experience, Workday pointed out.
According to survey results, business leaders across the three functions focus on the followings to help close the acceleration gap.
What leaders are doing
Finance leaders: Unified, fast data. More than half of finance leaders (51%) say that one of the most important elements to accelerating planning, execution, and analysis cycles is new technologies that can help integrate data between disparate systems and break down internal data silos.Â
Yet, 61% say that technology that unifies financial, people, and operational data is their most pressing need, with 64% admitting that it takes weeks — or more — to get results at the end of a reporting period.
HR leaders: Employee experience and skills development. Amid the Great Resignation, organisations increasingly focused on skills to help improve recruiting, retention, and overall employee experiences.
According to the survey, 25% of HR leaders rank resilience and adaptability first among skills that will ensure teams can continuously meet business demands as they evolve.
In addition, 50% of HR leaders say positive employee experiences are most important to accelerating transformation across the business.
IT leaders: Breaking down silos to drive automation. While CIOs hold the key to data-fueled transformation, many are overwhelmed by the pace of change as legacy constraints and data silos are top barriers to digital transformation, according to the survey.
Only 42% of IT leaders are confident in their teams’ ability to adopt cloud technologies without legacy constraints.
In addition, half of IT leaders (50%) are struggling to keep pace with service upgrades as part of legacy technology, with 59% saying it can take weeks or months to change an automated business process.
