Couchbase Inc., a cloud database platform company, released findings from its digital transformation survey of global IT leaders. The research shows that, despite shifting digital transformation goals, enterprises still are investing heavily in IT modernization and implementing new projects.
A focus on operational efficiency is influencing how global enterprises invest in digital transformation initiatives. Nearly 60 percent of enterprises surveyed reported their key modernization goal is to improve business resilience and efficiency in the face of the evolving global economy. Findings revealed enterprises’ top IT investment priority in 2023 is empowering developers to build modern applications.
The survey of 600 senior IT decision-makers found enterprises plan to invest on average $33 million in the next 12 months. At the same time, digital transformation priorities have shifted. Seventy-eight percent of IT decision-makers confirm their main priorities for transformation have changed in the last three years. Fifty-four percent say their digital transformation focus has become more reactive to market changes and customer preferences in order to help the wider organization stay agile.
While these changes in digital transformation goals have helped businesses build resilience and weather a dynamic economy, they have not slowed transformation. More than half (53 percent) of enterprises are either on target or ahead of their planned progress.
Other key findings include:
- Modernization enhances business resilience – 57 percent of respondents said their enterprise’s key digitization goal is to improve business resilience and efficiency in the face of an evolving global economy.
- Pressure to embrace new technologies – IT leaders are most commonly under pressure from the wider business to adopt serverless computing (identified by 42 percent of respondents), edge computing and IoT (40 percent) and low- or no-code technologies (39 percent).
- Developer productivity in the spotlight – Digital transformation projects are a key focus for developers. Pressure from developers on their organizations to support agile development and innovation (44 percent), and empowering developers to build more applications to meet customer needs (44 percent) were the top two drivers behind individual transformation projects.
- IT spending under increased C-level scrutiny – 49 percent of respondents say their CFO is managing budgets in more detail and asking more questions about IT investment, while 37 percent say the pressure to achieve transformation with less budget and staff resources has increased in the last 12 months.
- Enterprises report project challenges and delays – Issues such as a lack of buy-in within the business, an inability to secure or stay within budgets and reliance on legacy technology meant enterprises experienced projects failing, suffering delays or being canceled.
- High expectations and hopes for creative modernization projects – While there have been challenges, research showed that 38 percent of IT teams are focusing on tangible modernization projects that will provide immediate results. Furthermore, 100 percent of enterprises have implemented or identified opportunities for creative digital transformation projects that seemed impossible at the end of 2021. This suggests that modern tech continues to push the boundaries of what is possible for business transformation, drive innovation and inspire new next-gen apps.
Read the full Couchbase report here.
