Digital Strategy Outpaced by Business Demands

Apac CIOOutlook | Monday, May 09, 2022

Workday's latest digital transformation report has revealed that 55% of senior business leaders believe business demands are outpacing their digital strategy and are seeing a widening digital acceleration gap. Leaders are now adopting a more sustained approach to transformation by prioritising access to data and employee experience.

The global report, titled "Closing the Acceleration Gap: Toward Sustainable Digital Transformation," surveyed 1,150 global senior business leaders and examined the impacts of the worldwide pandemic on organisations' digital transformation efforts across three critical business functions: finance, human resources (HR), and information technology (IT). The report showed that while finance, HR, and IT leaders recognise the importance of digital transformation, more than half said the demands of the business often outpace their digital strategy.As a result, the digital acceleration gap is widening as the needs of the business are changing faster than the technology, processes, and culture required to keep pace.

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According to the report, "As the demands of a business environment in flux continue to evolve, culture, technology, structure, and processes are struggling to march to the same beat.An acceleration gap—between the pace of change driven by new opportunity and the ability of an organisation to capitalise on it—has opened.Closing it will be imperative to business survival."

To help close the acceleration gap, business leaders across the functions of finance, HR, and IT are now focusing on data, employee experience, and skills development and automation.

Finance leaders: Unified, fast data.

More than half of finance leaders (51%) say that one of the most critical elements to accelerating planning, execution, and analysis cycles are new technologies that can help integrate data between disparate systems and break down internal data silos.Yet, 61% say that technology that unifies financial, people, and operational data is their most pressing need, with 64% admitting that it takes weeks — or more — to get results at the end of a reporting period.

HR leaders: Employee experience and skills development.

Amid the Great Resignation, organisations increasingly focused on skills to help improve recruiting, retention, and overall employee experiences.According to the survey, 25% of HR leaders rank resilience and adaptability first among skills that ensure teams can continuously meet business demands as they evolve.Further, 50% of HR leaders say positive employee experiences are most important to accelerating transformation across the business.

IT leaders: Breaking down silos to drive automation

According to the survey, while CIOs hold the key to data-fueled transformation, many are overwhelmed by the pace of change as legacy constraints and data silos are top barriers to digital transformation.Only 42% of IT leaders are confident in their teams' ability to adopt cloud technologies without legacy constraints.Further, half of IT leaders (50%) struggle to keep pace with service upgrades as part of legacy technology, with 59% saying it can take weeks or months to change an automated business process.

Pete Schlampp, chief strategy officer, Workday, said: "Digitaltransformation is no longer a choice – it's necessary to keep pace in today's changing world.Yet, as the study shows, there's an acceleration gap organisations need to address to help ensure their digital journeys keep pace with the growing and evolving demands of their business," said."We're encouraged that global finance, HR, and IT leaders are taking a more measured approach to their transformation strategies by leveraging technology – like Workday – that drives adaptability across their business."

Jo-Anne Ruhl, vice president and managing director, Workday Australia and New Zealand, said,"In ANZ, we are seeing an increased emphasis on employee engagement and skills development as businesses take a more sustained approach to transformation."

"As we learn to live and work in this constantly changing world, our customers, who already have the right technology in place, are focusing on culture and the employee experience to ensure that transformations are sustainable, and the business is set up for long-term success.As such, implementing an intelligent employee listening like Workday Peakon Employee Voice has become a key part of ensuring transformations remain sustainable; by helping to measure employee engagement throughout the journey, and responding to feedback where appropriate."

workday's enterprise management cloud helps organisations close the digital acceleration gap, providing a unified view of financial, people, and operational data. It enables organisations to adapt and stay ahead of the accelerating pace of change.

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