The level of digitalization in Poland is steadily rising, but not as fast as generally around the world. This means that our country is still losing out against other highly developed economies. Poland has held one of the last places since the launch of the index, and never has managed to improve its position. The result of 40.5 points this year, as against 52.3 for the EU as a whole, represents less than 77% of the EU average. It’s also hard to count on improvement in the next year – only 14% of companies in Poland declared that they will increase spending on digital transformation, a 7 pp drop in this result compared to the results of last year's KPMG survey.
78%
of organizations have no formal document concerning their digital transformation strategy
68%
of companies surveyed say that they use cloud solutions
29%
of firms do not earmark expenditures for digital transformation
Poland did not improve its position in the DESI ranking, but remained fourth from the bottom, ahead of Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. Meanwhile, KPMG’s business digital transformation index dipped from 4.8 in 2022 to 4.4 in 2023. And that’s on a scale of 1 to 10.
Key observations
Digitalization strategy
According to the survey conducted by KPMG in February 2023, companies present on the market in Poland still face many challenges in their digitalization strategy. The score for digitalization strategy in this year’s Business Digital Transformation Monitor is 3.5 points out of a possible 10. Last year it was 3.8, which on one hand shows a worsening situation and raises many questions, but on the other hand reveals huge potential for work in this area. Over three-fourths of companies still lack a formal written strategy for digital transformation, and few companies plan to adopt one.
Implementation of technology
What counts in the process of digital transformation is concrete actions exploiting new tools. In Polish enterprises, based on the results of this year’s study, technologies can be divided into top technologies and undervalued technologies – there is no middle ground. Mobile solutions and computer-assisted decision-making are conquering the market, but the metaverse and blockchain are clearly being overlooked. Firms pin great hopes to cloud services, but notwithstanding security systems, the safety of data storage still causes concern.
Cybersecurity and risk
The risk associated with online security rises along with progressive digitalization of processes of the overall organization. Introduction of modern technologies and innovations requires additional protection, and not all companies are equally prepared. Concern about the safety of transactions using digital services can be minimized by implementing the right security measures and raising the awareness of threats among all employees. In the survey sample, formal policies and procedures for internet security were created and implemented in more than half of organizations (60%), but this was a slight decline from last year. Moreover, a dedicated cybersecurity division was created in only slightly over a fourth of companies.
Potential for transformation
Polish companies have reduced their financial and human resources devoted to digitalization. 29% of enterprises do not invest in digital transformation, while 71% do not assign employees mainly to tasks in this area of development. The results of the Business Digital Transformation Monitor show how misplaced this approach is, as higher scores in all four assessed categories were won by companies investing a relatively large percentage of their revenues and the time of a significant part of their staff in digitalization. Fewer resources also mean that Polish companies do not look for new solutions as actively as they claimed a year ago, and employers express concern about the readiness of their employees for digital transformation, and about the quality of their training.
Overall level of business digitalization
Score in Business Digital Transformation Monitor in Poland
Source: "Business Digital Transformation Monitor. Edition 2023”.
Scores in Business Digital Transformation Monitor in Poland by categories
Source: "Business Digital Transformation Monitor. Edition 2023”.
As shown by this year’s Business Digital Transformation Monitor, all of the analysed areas require improvement to a greater or lesser extent. The hardest to implement and the most complex proved to be digitalization strategy, which performed the weakest in our study.
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The survey was conducted by Norstat using the CATI method (computer-assisted telephone interviewing) in February 2023. There was a sample of 180 respondents responsible for digitalization issues in their companies. The group was made up of managers, directors, board members and CEOs. The sample of companies surveyed was selected to reflect the approximate share of small, medium-sized and large enterprises in the Polish economy, excluding entities employing fewer than 10 people. The entities were categorized based on their core business into nine sectors: construction & real estate; energy, mining & utilities; life sciences (pharmaceuticals, chemicals & medical devices); automotive; consumer goods; finance; IT, media & communications; transport, shipping & logistics; other.
