Upskilling in the digital transformation age

^{76% of respondents believe their organization can improve their technology adoption.}

Fortunately, 94% already have a digital transformation strategy in place, with over half (56%) saying they’re very or extremely confident in it.

There’s also significant adoption of different technologies across our respondents.

In the “optimizing” category, companies are adopting new technology in a much more systematic and widespread way. 51% have a major adoption of AI/ML compared to 1% of “hesitating” businesses.

Quite simply, more mature technology adoption translates to greater levels of success (and will pay dividends when it comes to giving the workforce a greater opportunity to reskill and upskill.)

^{Financial management processes in the digital age}

Since financial management and forecasting are intrinsic to success, they tend to be among the oldest processes in the business – and are a key pain point:

56% say their finance processes are too slow.

78% report they face challenges with financial management processes – from outdated systems to data access issues and high human error rates.

62% also agree a lack of access to information affects their organization’s ability to plan effectively…

… and 55% say they can’t adjust quickly when external factors impact their business.

Fortunately, most organizations (85%) are exploring avenues for improvement (and “optimizing” businesses are far more likely to be investing in improvements to these processes):

Most organizations are looking to blend technology, automation, and people strategies to improve this function.

Technology adoption varies widely by sector

In every area, the public sector, education, and charities/nonprofits lag behind the private sector in terms of
technology adoption.

	Highest major adoption by sector	Lowest major adoption by sector
Data management tools	IT and technology (58%)	Charities/Not-for-profit (30%)
Cloud migration	IT and technology (57%)	Public sector (28%)
Real-time reporting tools	IT and technology (49%)	Education (24%)
Workflow automation	Financial services/IT and technology (45%)	Education (19%)
AI/machine learning	IT and technology (45%)	Public sector (11%)

They are also much less likely to have confidence in their own digital transformation strategies.

This both suggests resistance to
change – and raises the question of whether or not these sectors have the financial resources and talent necessary to successfully implement new technologies.