Assessing the progress made by Thai companies in adopting digital technologies, a recent report says that very few organizations are falling behind on their journey of digital transformation. Dell EMC Thailand, in collaboration with Intel, surveyed 100 executives from mid-to-large organizations to understand their level of digital preparedness and categorized businesses into one of the five categories: digital laggards, digital followers, digital evaluators, digital adopters, and digital leaders. The survey, which came out last month, says that a majority of the businesses in the country are using technology as a means to support and enhance their business performance. 

Nearly 7% of the businesses are playing the role of ‘digital leaders’ and using the latest digital technology and integrating them with core business operations. 40% of those surveyed were found to be digital adopters or the businesses which were ready with a mature digital plan, investments, and innovations. 25% were pegged as ‘digital evaluators’, or the businesses that are cautiously and gradually transforming digitally and are carefully planning for the future.

Other key findings

1. 23% were found to be ‘digital followers’, or the businesses that have limited digital investments and are planning to start the same in the future.
2. 90% of the leaders surveyed stated that digital transformation needs to be more prevalent all across the organization; whereas, 61% said that they will be the ‘disrupters’ as opposed to being disrupted, in the next five years.  
3. 71% of the leaders were of the view that they will struggle to meet the consumer demand within five years, and 33% were fearful that they might not be able to compete.
4. 69% of the businesses are using digital technology to expedite new product/service development; whereas 68% are building security and privacy into devices, applications, and systems. 
5. While 65% of those surveyed are trying to develop the right skill set and talent in-house, 52% are sharing knowledge across all functioning and facilitating a knowledge transfer between business and IT skills. 

As many as 96 percent of businesses faced some sort of challenges to digital transformation. The top barriers identified by the study are data privacy and cyber-security concerns, immature digital culture, lack of coherent digital strategy and vision, lack of right technology, and lack of right in-house skills and expertise. According to the study, the top five technologies businesses are investing in the most include cyber-security, multi-cloud environment, data centers, Artificial Intelligence, and Internet of Things.

The importance of being digitally dexterous has been restated in the findings of the survey. As is the trend all over the world, organizations in Thailand are coming to terms with the changing nature of business and work, and most seem to have started their journey of digital transformation. Noppadol Punyatipat, Country Manager, Dell EMC Thailand, rightly sums up the key takeaway from the report as, “Business is at a crucial intersection where technology, business, and mankind meet to create a better, more connected world... Only tech-centric organizations will reap the rewards offered by a digital business model, including the ability to move quickly, to automate everything and to delight customers. This is why digital transformation needs to be a number one priority.”