UAE and Saudi Arabia are two steps ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to digital transformation, according to the latest study by global tech giant Dell Technologies.
According to the ‘Digital Transformation Index 2020’, 90% of organisations in UAE and Saudi Arabia have fast-tracked, at least, some of their digital transformation programmes this year – accomplishing in a few months, what would normally have taken years. This is compared to the global benchmark of 80%, suggesting that organisations across the region have shifted their digital transformation programmes into high gear.
In fact, 85% of organisations in UAE and Saudi Arabia admitted to re-inventing their business model as a result of disruption – which is 6% ahead of organisations globally (79%).
When comparing the results from the last Digital Transformation Index in 2018 to this year, UAE and Saudi Arabia saw a 6% rise in the number of Digital Leaders (the most digitally mature organisation) last year. Digital Adopters (the second most digitally mature group) grew from 27% in 2018 to 31% in 2020.
This can be attributed to the level of digital transformation acceleration happening in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and hence, it is no surprise that the 2020 Digital Transformation Index also recorded a fall in the number of least digitally mature groups – namely, the Digital Laggards and Digital Followers – since 2018.
According to Dell Technologies, these organisations are moving up, into the Digital Adopter and Digital Evaluator groups, which have expanded in tandem.
The study also revealed that organisations in UAE and Saudi Arabia are keeping pace with global investment levels in the newer technologies including Edge and AI.
In addition, organisations in UAE and Saudi Arabia are a solid 6% ahead of their global competitors when it comes to investing in 5G infrastructure demonstrating their clear commitment to develop state-of-the-art connectivity infrastructure.
Looking beyond 2021, the report highlighted that UAE and Saudi firms also have high confidence in Edge computing’s capabilities. As such, Edge application investment is expected to be higher (51%) among organisations in UAE and Saudi Arabia compared to the global average (28%).
The report also highlighted that organisations across the region are particularly confident that the Edge strategies being rolled out will future-proof their business.
Among the top technology investments in UAE and Saudi Arabia over the next one to three years include real-time applications at the edge, artificial intelligence algorithms, cybersecurity solutions, data management tools and 5G infrastructure.
The pandemic may have catalysed digital transformation across the globe, but continuous transformation is challenging. The top three barriers to digital success cited by respondents in the UAE and Saudi Arabia are the inability to extract insights from data and/or information overload (a jump of eleven places since 2016); lack of economic growth due to pandemic related disruption (a new entrant for 2020); and data privacy and cybersecurity concerns (down one place since 2018).