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451 Research shines light on how enterprise attitudes to digital transformation are evolving

Enterprises are capitalising on their infrastructure upgrades and are increasing their use of cloud to take advantage of emerging technologies and accelerate business change, says 451 Research

Enterprises are fast approaching a tipping point in their digital transformation journeys where their technology investments offer them a competitive edge, rather than just supporting their day-to-day operations.

That’s according to 451 Research’s inaugural Voice of the enterprise: digital pulse survey, which flags several emerging technology areas organisations are looking to embrace over the coming year, including business intelligence (BI), machine learning/artificial intelligence (ML/AI) and big data.

In 451 Research’s view, the shift towards focusing on these three technology areas is indicative of how enterprise attitudes to data are changing, with many more now appreciating its value to the wider business and the competitive edge it can provide.

“The growth opportunity around data is clear, with almost 30% of organisations saying ML/AI is a top priority in 2018 while just 12% of respondents use these solutions today,” 451 Research said.

“Meanwhile, usage of much-hyped technologies such as blockchain remains very low, but more organisations will begin to move from tyre kicking to actual deployment over the next year, with 12% of [the report’s] respondents citing blockchain as a top IT priority for 2018.”

Enterprise appetites for these technologies are predicted to rise this year, as enterprises have now moved to address the shortcomings in the cost and performance of their infrastructure by moving to adopt cloud and service-orientated IT consumption models, the analyst house added.

On this point, 60% of the 1,000 IT professionals who took part in the 451 Research poll anticipate that by 2019 the bulk of their on-premise IT requirements will be fulfilled by the public cloud or software-as-a-service (SaaS) deployments.

As a result of this trend, 451 Research said Microsoft and Amazon Web Services (AWS) are now considered by many respondents to be their most “strategic” technology partner, now so many of their applications and workloads are run on their respective clouds.

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So much so, 35% of respondents predict Microsoft will become their most strategic IT provider partner by 2019, compared with 33% today, while 17% said they anticipate that AWS will fill that position for their organisation in two years’ time, up from 7% presently.

Melanie Posey, research vice-president and general manager of Voice of the Enterprise at 451 Research, said report’s findings highlight a growing appreciation within large organisations about the benefits technology can bring.

“The survey suggests that many – but certainly not all – organisations are finally reaching the point where they can focus on endeavors that help differentiate the business, instead of merely keeping the lights on,” she said.

“In 2018, we expect to see much of this effort focused around a new set of approaches to data optimisation and analysis.” ... ... ... .... ....... ....... ...

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