Less than 30% of senior business leaders believe their technology foundation readiness is ‘very high’: KPMG

Ashley Lo
2-min read

Despite 76% believing that digital capabilities are key to transformation success, many enterprises are struggling to keep up.

Less than a third of senior leaders consider their technology foundation readiness to be very high, sitting at 29%, according to a new survey from KPMG International.

KPMG’s 2024 global transformation survey comes at a time where technological advancements are rapidly reshaping industries, featuring insights from over 480 senior leaders and 1,600 line leaders at companies with at least US$500 million ($675.33 million) in annual revenues.

Despite 76% of senior leaders indicating their belief that generative artificial intelligence (AI), neural networks, and digital twins will significantly enhance the likelihood of transformational success, the report found that enterprises are struggling to keep up.

For most enterprises, transformation has evolved from being episodic and is now a state of continuous reinvention, says KPMG.

It found that 88% of enterprises are currently overseeing two or more transformation programs, while over half, at 54%, are running three or more simultaneously.

Five barriers limiting digital transformation were uncovered, which include a lack of resources, skills or expertise; stakeholder resistance to change; stakeholder and employee resistance; competing business goals; and a lack of funds or an unclear business case.

In the face of continuous technological advancements and their roles in transforming enterprises, KPMG’s report expects outperformers to have strengths across four areas: resilient cultures, digital maturity, partner ecosystem alignment and strong orchestration capabilities.

With the survey finding that 73% of digitally mature enterprises have high levels of trust in their leaders, cultures of trust, shared values and alignment to the strategic vision become integral to the transformation success and long-term organisational resilience of enterprises.

Additionally, the report found that despite digitally mature enterprises being more likely to outperform, two-thirds of senior leaders rated their tech foundations as no better than adequate; while most expect the impacts of technology on transformation to rise in the next one to three years.

KPMG’s 2024 survey reported that leading companies are leveraging partnerships to accelerate their technological capabilities and overcome supply chain challenges. However, only one-third of senior leaders believe their current partner ecosystem is strongly aligned with their transformation goals.

In terms of orchestration capabilities, the report also found that approximately 60% of senior leaders and line leads believe that adopting advanced technology will increase the likelihood of transformation success.

The 2024 global transformation survey highlights the increasing role of new technologies and expansive data repositories in helping enterprises to create greater value, says KPMG.

See Also: