In a research report by Infosys Digital Acceleration Study: Australia and New Zealand, revealed that enterprise leaders across sectors are at varying stages of digital agility, facing consistent barriers and opportunities to building disruptive business models at scale.
The report identifies three clusters based on digital maturity:
- Visionaries: Transform to meet business objectives through new business models and an innovative culture. Visionaries understand digital is central to the success of future endeavours
- Explorers: Explorers are committed to improving their customer’s experiences through identifying digital programs that enhance customer experience, or increase brand value through differentiation
- Watchers: Largely focused on efficiency-driven outcomes of digital adoption.
Approximately 17% of Australian and New Zealand respondents are identified as visionaries, in contrast with 22% of their global counterparts, indicating that fewer Australian and New Zealand leaders have identified digital transformation as a central part of their business strategy in comparison to global peers.
The majority of Australian and New Zealand businesses surveyed (55%) fall into the Explorers category, with a focus on digital transformation for the differentiation value it gives them in either customer experience or an uplift in brand value. This is higher in comparison to global peers of whom 50% are categorised as Explorers.
Additionally, 28% of Australian and New Zealand respondents are identified as Watchers which aligns with global research. Watchers have partially deployed digital initiatives but are focused on efficiency-driven outcomes.
Common to all business leaders is understanding business agility (85%), enhancing digital culture (82%), and delivering seamless customer experience (78%). These are key organisational drivers to enable retail leaders to build disruptive business models at scale. Visionaries particularly recognise that there is a constant need to reinvent themselves to stay relevant to their customers.
Interestingly, internal challenges rather than external market forces are cited as a major barrier to change with resourcing and legacy issues preventing organisations from making rapid progress. Organisational silos (38%) and transforming from a low risk organisation to an organisation that rewards experimentation (37%) are some of the most prevalent challenges cited by businesses, as well as hiring digital natives and building digital skillsets (38%).
Despite 72% of Australian and New Zealand respondents identified as belonging in the visionary and explorer cluster, there is an overall sentiment amongst enterprise business leaders that their digital transformation journeys are not comparable at an international level.
When comparing themselves to global clusters respectively, slightly over half (54%) of Australian and New Zealand visionaries perceive themselves to be globally ahead, while only 22% of explorers and a quarter of watchers (25%) feel globally ahead of peers. When compared to local counterparts, this perception is higher, with 62% of visionaries, 35% of explorers and half (50%) of watchers feeling ahead amongst their peers.
The survey has also revealed industries such as the public sector, healthcare and utilities report feeling most behind global counterparts, while logistics and manufacturing are the most confident. Half of public service organisations (50%) feel their digital maturity is behind global peers, with only 7% reporting being ahead. Healthcare and telecommunications/utilities both report only 19-20% maturity.
The retail industry reports also indicated that 30% of respondents feel behind in digital maturity, with 47% of respondents reporting maturity. Both logistics and manufacturing organisations feel comfortable with digital maturity, with 80% and 93% respectively reporting digital maturity on par or ahead of global counterparts.
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