Are you ready to thrive in the digital economy?
Insights from the KPMG US Technology Survey
The majority of enterprises now see consistent returns on their digital investments
Is your enterprise in the right shape to manage, govern, and accelerate technology transformation on pace or ahead of your competitors?
Business strategy and technology strategy are no longer separate. What organizations do to win in the marketplace is almost always underpinned by some sort of technology investment. And while only a few years ago approximately 70 percent of IT-enabled transformation failed to deliver on strategic objectives, today nearly half of them are adding significant value and driving real outcomes.
The 2023 KPMG US Technology Survey Report provides an outlook on the digital plans and priorities of US organizations, reflecting data from 400 enterprise technology leaders. It sheds light on how intentional digital transformation can propel businesses toward their growth and resilience goals. And it focuses on key challenges in maintaining transformation momentum to serve larger strategic ambitions.
Digital transformation delivers results. For most sectors, from boards on down, there is a tremendous strategic focus on improving organizational performance through investment in technology. Organizations have developed their transformation capabilities and returns are following.
Barry Brunsman
Principal and Global CIO Center of Excellence leader, KPMG in the US
Growing confidence in the value technology can deliver
The survey reveals confidence about the value technology can deliver—and highlights the rush to embrace the latest innovations. As a result, the number of businesses with leadership buy-in for emerging technology has more than tripled, from 10 to 32 percent, despite 65 percent of US technology executives indicating that they are now expected to do more with smaller budgets.
In fact, economic headwinds helped diminish remaining hesitation on the part of US technology leaders to use emerging tools to advance their business strategies. Technology already underpins and enables the end-to-end operations of most businesses, and many expect that it will continue to advance at an exponential rate, unlocking capabilities, opportunities, and seemingly endless possibilities.
AI, robots, and other opportunities
If ROI is the guiding light for selecting new technology bets, it is shining brightest on artificial intelligence, with 52 percent of respondents selecting it as the most important technology for achieving their short-term ambitions. But robotics and automation weren’t far behind, at 45 percent, and VR/AR at 43 percent.
While technology leaders are excited about the potential for these disruptors, they are still in the early stages of incorporating them into their operations. In fact, the research shows many strategies returning to the drawing board as the rapid pace of advancements forces businesses to revisit their technology foundations and strategies. To capitalize on their full potential, businesses need to strengthen their IT infrastructure while deepening their data expertise, processes, and governance.
The most important technologies for US businesses achieving their short-term ambitions over the next three years
Coordination, skills, and other challenges
In our survey, 56 percent of respondents said that the returns from their digital transformation investments had exceeded their expectations. Those successes are often tied to how technology leaders address collaboration, talent, and cultural weaknesses across the organization—because the highest hurdles are organizational, not technical.
56%
of companies say their transformation efforts exceeded expectations
Effective collaboration is not just a board issue. Enterprise-wide digital literacy demands agile coordination across business functions, and 57 percent of technology leaders say employee resistance influences their companies’ investment decisions with new technologies. Indeed, a lack of skills within the organization was cited as a leading transformation barrier by 41 percent of respondents and a risk-averse culture by 40 percent. The main talent gaps are in creativity, innovation, and the ability to teach others.
Challenges most likely to slow down transformation in US companies
With these findings in mind, creating the right environment for digital transformation requires:
- Increasing digital understanding for non-technology people
- Building soft skills for specialized technical people to communicate about digital innovations
Successful transformation through better governance
Functional silos sabotage the agility organizations need to adapt, an essential attribute for thriving in the digital economy. Knocking down barriers, improving collaboration, and simplifying coordination enables companies to pivot resources in line with changing priorities while delivering better outcomes—faster and more efficiently.
Improved governance is key to this process. It can help set clear objectives for transformation programs, target specific metrics aligned to strategic goals, find new types of talent and ways of working, and unleash the agility needed to thrive.
Good governance helps solve the coordination challenge. It also strengthens customer trust and maximizes the benefits of existing technology. It positions companies to make the foundational technical and policy changes needed for smarter investments. And it can expand analytics beyond the domain of data scientists to deliver value throughout the business.
The key to becoming a digitally enabled enterprise is adaptability. Moving towards an agile model challenges your conventional way of doing things. At times, it is a little bit scary, because you are rewiring how an enterprise naturally thinks.
Nandha Kumar
Chief information tech and data officer for Americas at Danone
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Insights on how companies advance with targeted digital investments and transformation.
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2023 KPMG US Technology Survey Report
Discover how enterprises advance with targeted digital investments and transformation.
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At KPMG, we believe that business transformation is too good an opportunity to miss. Combining the right technologies, people, and processes is crucial to getting your organization ready to digitize. Building that environment can make the difference between success and failure on your transformation journey. Together we can help you orient your business around the customer, optimize functions for a new era, and manage enterprise risk for a safer future. Because when people and technology are in harmony, great things can happen. Transformation never stops. Neither do we.
