16 May 2017

The CIF’s Alex Hilton says businesses need to invest in skills development and training schemes for staff to help drive digital initiatives further.

Organisations will need to focus on upskilling the workforce if their digital transformation efforts are to be a success, warns the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF).

In February, the industry body surveyed 250 IT and business decision-makers in large enterprises, SMBs and public sector organisations, and discovered that 44 per cent currently have a digital transformation strategy and a further 32 per cent plan to implement one.

However, 94 per cent reported facing barriers to this transformation. Fifty-five per cent stated that their organisation did not have the skills needed to adapt to digital transformation, 48 per cent cited privacy and security concerns, while 47 per cent were worried about legacy IT systems. Worryingly, the CIF says just 17 per cent were completely confident that their senior leadership team would be able to deliver digital transformation.

“The results from our research indicate that many organisations lack the strategic thinking, direction, and support needed to make a success of digital transformation,” says the forum’s CEO Alex Hilton. “UK business and technology leaders need to consider the digital imperatives and look at how they support their businesses with technology to meet them. Moreover, they need to invest in skills development and training schemes for staff to help drive digital initiatives further.

According to Hilton, digital transformation is about more than just turning legacy processes into digital ones, and looks at how an organisation interacts and engages with its employees, partners and customers. 

“Having the right skills in the broader workforce to deliver digital transformation is critical, and the research revealed that just 45 per cent of respondents believe that their organisation has the skills required to adapt,” he says.