The need for businesses to be agile, innovative and data savvy to compete and thrive emerges loud and clear, but so, too, do concerns around privacy, security and integration with legacy IT systems.
In its sixth year, Baker McKenzie’s 2020 Digital Transformation & Cloud Survey: The Future of Enterprise Data captures major trends and attitudes toward the use of data through a global lens of respondents in legal, technology and procurement roles, across a large cross-section of major industries.
Some key insights from this year’s survey include:
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- COVID-19 has impacted the speed of digital transformation. Of those surveyed, 58% across all sectors, who have not yet begun a digital transformation program, now say that the pandemic has accelerated their plans toward digitalization.
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- There is greater opportunity for monetization with digital transformation. Survey results show that though more than 60% of respondents have moved ahead with a digital transformation program, the way they harness the benefits of new technology differs. Most have done so to become more operationally efficient rather than to use digital transformation to seize new business opportunities and monetize new offerings.
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- Data privacy and cybersecurity concerns have emerged as drivers to digital transformation, accelerated by COVID-19. Almost half of respondents cited the need to “improve cybersecurity” as one of their top three drivers of accelerating digital transformation, due to the pandemic. This need is further amplified when analyzing where companies are allocating funds: 4 out of 5 businesses surveyed reported that they are investing either heavily or very heavily in cybersecurity.
- Cloud remains on the top of the list of essential technology for enterprises. Survey results reveal a definite trend in companies moving toward the use of private cloud, highlighting an increase in concerns over data security (which includes cybersecurity) and disaster recovery.
