Tech-savvy entrepreneurs on growth track

Kolkata, May 14 (UNI): Growing businesses are led by leaders who know about, and regularly discuss, technology, according to new findings from ThoughtWorks Inc., a global software consultancy, in a new report titled ‘Tech proficiency: The new imperative for business growth, leadership and agility’ that was released today.

Surveying 969 CEOs, CTOs and CIOs across 12 different countries, the new study assessed the level of digital proficiency, capability and confidence among companies, and the bearing this had on plans to adapt and grow at a critical time.

The research revealed that among businesses that anticipated growth in 2021, three-quarters (74%) were led by leaders that kept fully up-to-date with the latest technology developments, compared with 42% of leaders of companies that were not growing.

Meanwhile, leaders of non-growing businesses were more than twice as likely to rely on the tech expertise of others instead (55% vs. 25%).

The leaders of growing businesses were also significantly more likely to say their management team’s knowledge of new technology developments was ‘good’ in relation to key areas of business technology.

In particular, their digital proficiency was superior in areas including digital transformation (47% of growing businesses vs. 37% of non-growing businesses), cloud computing (39% vs. 29%), data strategy (44% vs. 32%), and software platforms (34% vs. 26%).

Growing businesses were also more likely to discuss tech issues at board level on a regular basis. Among growing businesses, over half (52%) had board level discussions around digital transformation at least on a monthly basis. This fell to 40% among non-growing businesses.

Meanwhile, half of the growing businesses discussed customer-centric digital experiences at least monthly, (vs. 36% of non-growing businesses), while 49% discussed issues around enterprise modernization (vs. 34%).

Businesses which admitted being held back by their technological capabilities were four times less likely to have board-level discussions about digital transformation and operations each month than businesses that described themselves as technologically advanced, were half as likely to discuss customer experience and were 30% less likely to discuss enterprise modernisation.

Among those respondents who did not regularly discuss tech issues at board level, the reasons included: not understanding the problems (39%), not knowing how to implement or manage them (33%), or a feeling that they were not a priority (50%).

Sameer Soman, managing director for ThoughtWorks in India, commented, “Technology isn’t just about hardware or software products that can be plugged in to solve a problem. It is about the culture of an organization – and that culture starts at the top. Today’s CEO needs to be as well versed in data strategy, platform capability and engineering excellence, as they are about sales, marketing and accounts. These will all have an influence on future business performance.”