FinServ’s Tech Adoption Levels Come Out On Top

Small businesses have struggled to truly embrace technological innovation. The most recent SMB Technology Adoption Index by PYMNTS found that only 13 percent of small businesses are willing to adopt innovative technology, and the latest research from Ovum adds even more evidence that businesses of all sizes are hesitant to embrace technology.

Reports Monday (Dec. 12) outlined key findings in Ovum’s ICT Enterprise Insights for 2017 report. Researchers examined companies across 15 industries and 62 countries to find that a third of businesses are unprepared for “digital transformation.”

According to Ovum, that means companies are not ready to replace their existing, legacy systems and overhaul operations to integrate high-tech, cost-effective and flexible tools.

Further, only 7 percent of businesses surveyed said they consider their own digital transformations to be complete.

“The uneven maturity of digital transformation by industry and country has created a complex landscape for sales teams to navigate, but our data plays a significant role in quantifying for our customers their target markets’ investment appetite and timescales,” reflected Daniel Mayo, Ovum’s director of IT, data and tools. “This enables them to quickly and confidently make decisions about where to focus their go-to-market and product investments.”

In further breaking down Ovum’s report, researchers found that South Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America are the three geographies experiencing the fastest increase in IT spend. Meanwhile, North America, Western Europe and Australia are experiencing the slowest increase in spend.

Unsurprisingly, companies in the financial services industry seemed the most confident in their own digital transformations, with 60 percent of companies in this space agreeing that their technology overhauls are either “in progress” or “well-advanced.”

Retail banks, payments, insurance and financial markets all noted the highest levels of digital transformation, the report found.