Speed Of Digital Transformation Area Of Concern For CIOs And CFOs

New research from cloud service provider Canopy has highlighted that the majority of CIOs and CFOs are concerned about the pace with which their company is progressing with so-called "digital transformation projects".

The survey questioned 950 CIOs, CFOs and business decision makers drawn from the enterprise across the globe, and found that 75 per cent of CFOs believe their business is losing out in terms of revenue by failing to have the right cloud infrastructure and apps in place to support their digital transformation (essentially taking on board the latest tech to better serve their customers).

The research (carried out by Vanson Bourne) got CFOs to pin a figure on the losses estimated to be incurred in this respect, and the average came out at €67 million (£53 million) of revenue last year. With the right cloud capabilities in place, those financial officers believe that 2015 would see double-digit growth for their company, and a revenue boost of an average of €123 million (£97 million) next year.

No less than 70 per cent of CIOs and CFOs think their business will become uncompetitive as a result of this lagging behind in terms of digital transformation, and 76 per cent of those said this would happen as quickly as the end of 2015.

In terms of the cloud specifically, 90 per cent of respondents admitted there was a definite need to embrace cloud-based apps to achieve digital transformation, and 64 per cent said a lack of investment in cloud tech was holding back "vital digital initiatives". The old bugbears appeared when the survey asked questions about barriers to cloud adoption – 50 per cent were worried about security in the cloud, and 44 per cent cited data protection concerns.

Jacques Pommeraud, CEO of Canopy, commented: "While 'digital' is a widespread term today, right now digital transformation is only happening in pockets and is proving elusive for many global enterprises."

"One of the keys to unlocking digital transformation is cloud computing. From the work we're doing with clients, we're seeing that it has the power to create revenue by making the customer journey effortless across any device, enables faster customer sign-ups so they'll spend sooner and support real-time analytics to make more accurate targeting decisions. The most innovative clients use the power of cloud and large scale analytics to generate new sources of revenue for example in manufacturing for the area of preventative maintenance."