According to new research from Dell Boomi, three quarters of UK business (86%) are highly dependent on data with four in five (81%) admitting they could be out of business within five years without further investment in technology.
The poll, carried out by OnePoll, quizzed 250 IT decision makers in large UK businesses on the level of connectivity across their organisation, including the state of integration and the extent to which data and organisational siloes exist across their organisations. The research seeks to help companies understand how they can become a truly connected business and ensure their digital transformation journeys can be successful.
It is clear that UK organisations as a whole are already on a digital transformation journey and are focused on dealing with issues such as cloud solutions - with a third (33%) seeking to implement hybrid cloud solutions - cyber security challenges (41%) and budget worries (33%). Alongside this, IT leaders widely acknowledge that without continued investment in IT, their business would not survive.
Almost three in five (57%) of the organisations polled highlighted legacy software as one of the biggest challenges they face unsurprising given that transforming decades of IT infrastructure isn't any easy task.
"Most large organisations are living with hybrid IT landscapes as they move applications to the cloud while maintaining legacy on premise applications. Ensuring connectivity and a single pane of glass across this landscape is critical to the three quarters of companies that admit to being highly data driven - as yet only one in four (26%) see themselves as 'very connected'," said Derek Thompson, Vice President of EMEA at Dell Boomi.
This challenge of connectivity is further highlighted in the study with around two in five (37%) listing connectivity as a part of their current IT infrastructure they would be keen to improve. Alongside this, over a third (34%) of businesses want increased integration between their applications and almost one in four (24%) are facing issues with data siloes further adding to the disconnect organisations are facing.
When asked what they'd change about their current IT infrastructure, two of the top considerations for IT leaders were having complete transparency over data (38%) and communication between all relevant applications and data (38%). With the evolving IT landscape and a greater number of applications sitting in the cloud, cyber security unsurprisingly continues to be top of mind for nearly half (41%) the businesses polled.
"A growing number of organisations are using iPaaS solutions to help them on their modernisation journey but with limited levels of investment. This goes to show there is a tremendous opportunity for businesses to accelerate their IT modernisation agendas by utilising single platform solutions that support integration and management of data across legacy on premises applications, in the cloud and in a hybrid application landscape," added Thompson.
"With the majority of UK businesses highly dependent on data to drive their business, it is critical they take steps now to ensure the validity and integrity of that data, by driving better connectivity across applications and the business at large."
