Digital transformation delays cost organisations over £3m per project, research says

Budget constraints, legacy systems, and a shortage of developers are causing digital transformation delays and costing organisations over £3 million, according to research from low-code application developer Toca.

A survey of 200 IT decision-makers revealed that IT teams are struggling to deliver digital transformation projects in a timely manner. As a result, with digitalisation delays lasting five months on average, 88% of IT decision-makers are paying up to £20,200 a day, or just over £3 million.

Just under 70% of the interviewees said that organisations’ digital transformation projects are expected to be delivered three times faster than five years ago.

At the same time, 72% of IT leaders said that waiting lists for digital projects are getting longer despite the shorter deadlines.

As a result, around 70% of leaders are struggling with the pressure of innovation, and employee satisfaction, customer service and productivity are the top three areas being negatively affected.

As it stands, just over 72% of IT decision-makers believe large-scale projects are no more with smaller projects are being favoured.

“Organisations are focusing attention on digital transformation projects to drive new business opportunities and to meet the growing expectation for seamless customer journeys, which have been heightened by newer, digital-first competitors entering the market,” said Mat Rule, founder and CEO of Toca.

Almost all of the IT leaders say that apps, connecting systems and automating processes faster are essential for businesses, but they need to leverage legacy systems to speed up digital projects rather than rewrite and platform them.

However, the pressure to meet shorter deadlines is forcing firms into making poor shortcuts for a quick delivery.

The report found that 80% of IT decision-makers said that ‘the need for speed’ is increasing technical debt, while 76% said that the technical debt holds them back from taking on new projects.

This is negatively effecting businesses ability to deploy digital technologies, with only one in four issues being resolved by digital transformation projects, according to the research.

Most processes aren’t automated because of time, cost, or complexity according to almost 80% of the respondents, despite data proving that automating manual tasks could save the average employee over five hours a week.