Demand for digital transformation projects outpaces IT budget growth, according to 85 percent of Australian tech leaders

As non-IT business divisions take the lead in acquiring or building the majority of the applications they use, Australian IT teams are losing control of digital infrastructure.

According to recent study performed by The Economist Intelligence Unit and funded by Appian, Australian IT departments are under enormous pressure to execute on an unsustainable backlog of digital transformation projects. Business project demands are outpacing IT budget growth, according to 85 percent of tech leaders. This is much higher than the global response of 64%, indicating that the gap between budget and demand in Australia is far greater than elsewhere in the globe.

Australian business units, on the other hand, are more aggressive in their response than business units around the world. Most of the applications that Australian executives use are procured or developed by non-IT business divisions, according to executives. Executive agreement in Australian companies is higher than the global average (63 percent Australian respondents agree, compared with the global average of 55 percent). The sentiment is strongest among IT decision-makers in Australia, with three quarters (76%) agreeing.

To make matters worse, four out of five business leaders say their organisation has to strengthen its IT infrastructure and applications in order to better respond to external change, according to the research. According to the statistics, the majority of Australian executives (89 percent) feel their company had operational obstacles in dealing with the pandemic's concerns, with 41% classifying them as substantial.

IT losing control- At BUPA Australia & New Zealand, whose CIO, Sami Yalavac, was interviewed as part of the research, the shift toward non-IT-led application development is clear. Rather than relying on IT, BUPA creates teams that focus on key services for each section of the business and assume responsibility for the technology that delivers those services.

The importance of collaboration, and the data problem- More than three-quarters of Australian business leaders (77%) think their IT colleagues are very good at cooperating on new product development, and 66 percent of IT decision makers agree. Data accessibility, on the other hand, is a big roadblock for Australian companies looking to launch new revolutionary solutions. 71 percent of Australian business leaders say they've had to terminate a digital business endeavor because they didn't have enough data. This is significantly higher than the global average of 54%.