1 in 3 Aust businesses are not yet digital enterprises

Over a third of Australian businesses do not consider themselves to be digital enterprises, and close to two-thirds do not yet have a dedicated chief digital officer (CDO), new research shows.

A survey of around 500 IT decision-makers, conducted by Pureprofile on behalf of Software AG, shows that some sectors are sorely lagging behind the digital adoption curve.

Only a little over half of Australian public sector organisations, and only around 42% in the mining sector, consider themselves to be digital ready.

The banking and financial services sector is leading the charge, with 73.8% describing themselves as digital enterprises. Retail is following closely behind at 71.8%.

“Whilst a lot of work still needs to be done in this era of digital disruption, there is huge opportunity to be had by Australian organisations,” Stephen Keys, Software AG COO for Asia Pacific, Japan, Middle East, North Africa & Turkey, said.

The biggest perceived barrier to digitising business remains cost, followed by the time investment required.

According to the survey, 62.9% of Australian businesses do not have a dedicated CDO - an executive whose main responsibility is ‘digitising’ the business through IT. Around 29.5% of organisations share the role across more than one employee, and each have other responsibilities.

The retail industry has the highest percentage of organisations with a dedicated CDO, at 44.9%, followed by the public service sector at 44.8%.

“The lack of dedicated chief digital officers suggests that more focus needs to be placed on having a clear digital strategy for the entire business, with clear objectives and a robust timeline in place if Australian businesses are to meet their customers’ needs and remain competitive in the future,” Keys said.

Image courtesy of Dennis Skley under CC