Global Survey: Hyper Disruption and Digitization Leading Forces of Change Within Business

Oct 21, 2019 | DENVER, Colorado

New study reveals 94% of survey respondents are facing disruption and under pressure to rethink approach to keep pace

DENVER – Oct. 21, 2019 – Across industries, markets and geographies, businesses are facing a new reality in terms of remaining competitive in today’s hyper-digitized world. These new imperatives -- driven by rapidly evolving technologies, new entrants into the market and ever-changing customer demands -- require action from enterprises to ensure survival. A new survey conducted in September 2019 by Vanson Bourne, and sponsored by Teradata (NYSE: TDC), called “Adapt or Perish: The New Reality in a Hyper-Digitized World,” captures the five forces impacting business success in this new global paradigm: Hyper Disruption, Pervasive Digitization, Autonomous Action, The Cloud Imperative and Enterprise Consumerization.
 
“From new competitors, new business models, changing customer expectations and rapid technology advancements – the pace of change within the global marketplace is breathtaking,” said Martyn Etherington, Chief Marketing Officer at Teradata. “Acknowledging these changes and taking action to adapt and capitalize on them is critical to business success. At Teradata, we’re enabling this kind of business agility for our customers every day, giving them unprecedented insights into all aspects of their business – across departments and analytic silos – so they can move fast and stay ahead of the competition.”
 
Survey Overview
 
Hyper Disruption: Today’s enterprises are facing hyper disruption – from both external and internal forces – across all industries and at an unprecedented scale.
 

• Nearly all (94%) respondents across the U.S., EMEA, Japan and China are facing disruption in their industries and are under pressure to rethink approaches and processes to keep pace with current market forces.
• Top sources of disruption include:
  • Keeping up with advanced customer demands and dynamics (87%);
  • Workforce pressures, e.g., skills gaps, retention, etc. (85%); and
  • Adapting to new business models being introduced by competitors and startups (74%).
• Most of these companies (61%) feel underprepared to strategically address market disruption driven by competitors.

 
Pervasive Digitization: Most business leaders believe digitization can help address growing customer expectations for rapid and personalized engagement, and are beginning this process by refining business operations. While almost all survey respondents are in the process of digital transformation, some are further along than others.
 

• 99% of respondents are in the process of either moving to a digital business or leveraging/ piloting digital technologies to change business models.
• More than four in 10 respondents (41%) indicated that digitization efforts were widespread, but almost as many (40%) indicated that digitization only existed across certain aspects of the business.
• Just 10% confirmed they had fully realized widespread digital transformation.
• Nearly half (45%) of respondents believe their business requires improvement in their approach to managing data accessibility, which may include breaking down the many data silos in their organization, a critical requirement to becoming a digitally pervasive business.

 
Autonomous Action: Adequately navigating the vast amount of data at our fingertips and leveraging that data to find answers to the toughest business challenges remains the goal for most organizations on the road to pervasive digitization. For many, this requires leveraging artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and an autonomous platform. AI in particular has the potential to be widespread and to take a lofty role in the future of digital transformation.
 

• Nearly 60% of respondents who have at least limited digitization across their organization, agreed their digitization efforts were done with AI in mind.
• 68% of responding businesses confirmed that AI or ML were currently being leveraged in some areas of the business, with approximately one in three confirming pilots were already in progress.

 
The Cloud Imperative: For AI to be truly realized, a strong cloud analytics infrastructure must be in place to allow AI to operate at scale. While survey data shows the cloud’s promise and role in driving data analytics, the industry has yet to reach critical mass in its adoption of cloud analytics.
 

• Of the respondents whose organizations have data analytic workloads in the cloud, 64% are looking to AI as playing a major role in their overall cloud analytics strategy in the next year.
• Despite this enthusiasm, 61% of organizations confirmed that 50% or less of their data analytics applications and workloads currently exist in the cloud.
• Even more (69%) respondents who have data analytic workloads in the cloud, were concerned that their cloud analytics strategy still lagged behind other cloud initiatives.

 
Enterprise Consumerization: Among the many benefits of the cloud is its ability to provide businesses with greater simplicity and ease of use, a key driver behind its enterprise adoption. In fact, more enterprises than ever before are citing operational complexity as an issue and are turning to technology that has roots in the consumer world to simplify, become more agile and take friction out of business processes.
 

• Nearly six in 10 respondents (59%) agree that one of the more pressing issues they face is transforming business operations to be more agile.
• 74% of organizations also stated an urgent need for greater simplification and improved operations.

 
For more information on the “Adapt or Perish: The New Reality in a Hyper-Digitized World” survey, go see the Infographic on Teradata.com.
 
Methodology
In September 2019, Teradata commissioned independent market research company Vanson Bourne to conduct a quantitative research study of IT and business decision makers across U.S., UK, France, Germany, China and Japan. Respondents were from organizations with 1,000 employees or more, and with a global annual revenue of more than $250 million. The organizations could be from a variety of private or public sectors including financial services and IT, technology and telecoms. Interviews were conducted online using a rigorous multi-level screening process to ensure that only suitable candidates were given the opportunity to participate.
 
About Vanson Bourne
Vanson Bourne is an independent specialist in market research for the technology sector. Their reputation for robust and credible research-based analysis, is founded upon rigorous research principles and their ability to seek the opinions of senior decision makers across technical and business functions, in all business sectors and all major markets. For more information, visit www.vansonbourne.com
 

About Teradata

At Teradata, we believe that people thrive when empowered with trusted information. We offer the most complete cloud analytics and data platform for AI. By delivering harmonized data and trusted AI, we enable more confident decision-making, unlock faster innovation, and drive the impactful business results organizations need most. See how at Teradata.com.