Digitization has the potential to dramatically disrupt companies, organizations, and the way we live and work. As a result, many organizations strongly focus on digitization to develop new business models and sharpen their competitive advantages. However, for many companies, digitalization is also about pure survival.
When we now conduct our extensive global survey where we talk to business leaders and IT decision-makers from several industries and regions, it is clear that many organizations have challenges in fulfilling their digitization initiatives. The projects take longer than expected and do not provide the expected return on investment.
A new international survey conducted by the IT consulting company Experis shows that Swedish companies digitize and automate their operations at a slower pace than companies in comparable countries. Only one in five Swedish companies, 20%, state that they plan to accelerate their digitization and automation, which is significantly less than in countries such as Germany at 44%, Austria at 35%, and Switzerland at 34%.
IT and business must go hand in hand
Digitization is based on IT but is also enabled by IT. However, it is not an initiative that should only sit in the lap of the IT department. Having a close collaboration between the leadership (or C-level suite) and the IT organization is simply a necessity to ensure successful digitization. Here we have seen a significant positive change in recent years, where the boundaries between the IT and business sides have started to disappear or at least loosen. This is a good starting point for creating strong change management that must inevitably begin with and be managed by the CEO and the management team.
For the IT organization, it is vital to present the complexity of the IT environment and what is required to modernize a traditional IT environment. This helps set the expectations and is crucial for the leadership team to understand the requirements and what skills and resources are needed. Today, there is only one direction to go when it comes to the IT environment: towards the cloud, in whole or partly, using a hybrid environment.
Find the right platform and partners
It is also important to consider skills and resources in the IT area. According to recent figures from TechSverige (member organization for Swedish companies within the tech sector), a shortage of 70,000 people within the next three years is expected - in Sweden alone. This can make it difficult for many organizations to fulfill their digitization plans and modernize their traditional IT environments. Furthermore, Swedish companies also tend to keep essential resources internally, which means that recruitment and lack of available candidates can further delay and make planning more difficult.
When it comes to modernizing IT environments, applications, and systems, it is important to use experience skills so that migrations and development can go quickly and smoothly. Unfortunately, many organizations try to execute their plan internally, despite lacking expertise and experience in the specific areas. Therefore, it is wise to ensure that an ecosystem of knowledge is in place, which can help modernize the applications (including mainframe environments) and, for example, create hybrid cloud environments so that you can pick the raisins out of the cloud cake.
Development and modernization resources are a specifically narrow sector. It can be good to know that we at CGI have both experience, competence, and tailored processes to ensure successful and efficient delivery of digitization and cloud migration projects.
About this author
Greger Wikstand
Chief Architect Scandinavia
Greger Wikstrand er Chief Architect Scandinavia hos CGI og del af det team, der står i spidsen for CGI’s skandinaviske cloudpraksisser. Greger har en omfattende baggrund i it-branchen og har stor erfaring inden for rådgivning, infrastruktur, hosting og løsningsdesign. Greger hjælper CGI-klienter fra hele ...
