Organisations struggle to reach their digital potential

BMC has published the full results of its global survey for enterprise IT, “The Autonomous Digital Enterprise: A Strategic Approach to Measuring and Improving Digital Competitiveness” and availability of the Autonomous Digital Enterprise (ADE) Index interactive tool. The ADE Index tool is designed to help an enterprise measure its digital competitiveness and identify areas of opportunity, with a documented framework for future success.

BMC commissioned 451 Research, an S&P Global company, to assess the market perception and state of preparedness needed to navigate an era of intelligence, automation, and autonomy to ultimately become an ADE. Conducted in late 2020, the survey sourced insights from 1,200 business and IT decision-makers across more than 20 industries and 11 countries, and in organizations that had at least 500 employees with annual revenue over $100 million.

High-level insights include:

·       Global enterprises currently practice about two-fifths of what is needed to function as an ADE. Although all operating models and technology tenets of an ADE are currently practiced by the surveyed organizations, the top three enterprise focus areas draw the majority of the investment and include becoming a Data-Driven Business, Optimized Technology Buying, and Digital Business Domains.

·       The Global ADE Index is projected to increase from 39.3% to 46.1% over the next two years indicating a recognition from companies around the world to invest more heavily in enterprise technology solutions that increase digital competitiveness.

·       Looking forward two years, the top enterprise focus areas continue to include Data-Driven Business with an added focus on Adaptive Cybersecurity and a Transcendent Customer Experience. Tech-Savvy Corporate Functions was a close fourth demonstrating that human and digital skills need to align rapidly.

·       Latin America (LATAM) respondents reported a projected ADE Index score increase to 52% in two years – the biggest jump across all regions – signifying a strong willingness to make investments in technology and process to become an ADE.

Assessing digital maturity to run and reinvent

An ADE is the future state of business, one that comprises intelligent, interconnected, technology-enabled, value-creating systems that minimizes manual effort to capitalize on human creativity, skills, and intellect across the enterprise. The ADE Index tool gives organizations a way of measuring their own digital maturity and sophistication against the original cohort of respondents and opens the dialogue on how to improve digital competitiveness across the ADE operating model and technology tenets.

“The ADE Index developed from this research comes at a pivotal moment for the global enterprise landscape, as attaining operational excellence through automated technologies is an immediate necessity,” said Carl Lehmann, Senior Research Analyst at 451 Research. “This research shows that areas like security are an investment priority and the ability to measure oneself against peers can be advantageous to an enterprise’s deliberate integration of what’s needed to adapt and compete.”

“2020 forced nearly every enterprise worldwide to accelerate their digital transformation efforts, and as they hit the reset button on priorities, budgets, and timelines organization-wide, we all know that being digitally competitive is now mandatory,” said Ram Chakravarti, Chief Technology Officer at BMC. “This research illustrates that companies are just scratching the surface of their potential as an ADE. Coupled with our ADE Index tool, we’re excited to share a practical way for an enterprise to assess where they are in their ADE journey, and to ultimately help them create a clear path forward to thrive and compete well into the future.”