According to a new report from Accenture, the majority of businesses don’t see a return on their technology investments and just 14 percent of businesses manage to realise the full potential of their tech investments. Roughly $3.2 trillion was spent on new technology in the last five years. Businesses that were most successful with their investments were the ones investing in bold moves, rather than incremental shifts.

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Although executives have high expectations for the impact that AI will have on their businesses according to Cognizant’s new report, ‘Making AI Responsible – and Effective, only half of companies have policies and procedures in place to identify and address the ethical considerations of its applications and implementations.  The study analyses the responses of almost 1,000 executives across the financial services, technology, healthcare, retail, manufacturing, insurance and media & entertainment industries in Europe and the US. The research suggests that business leaders are positive about the importance and potential benefits of AI. Roughly two- thirds (63  percent) say that AI is extremely or very important to their companies today, and 84  percent expect this will be the case three years from now. Lower costs, increased revenues and the ability to introduce new products or services, or to diversify were cited as the key advantages for the future.

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A report published by Vodafone suggests there is a clear link between digital transformation and levels of business confidence in the UK. 79 percent of business leaders say digital transformation is a strategic priority and are keen to exploit its full potential. Organisations that prioritise digital transformation are also more confident about future growth. Of those business who see digital as a low-priority, only 17 percent are very confident about their future growth; for those who see digital transformation as a high-priority, this figure almost triples to 50 percent. The Digital, Ready? report surveyed 2,001 business leaders across the UK, from sole traders through to large enterprises and the public sector. It found that a fifth have already successfully implemented digital transformation projects; and more than half believe they are making good progress (53 percent). 69 percent recognise that their organisation will not survive if they fail to embrace digital transformation.

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One in three (34 percent) employees believe a robot would be better at decision making than their boss if it had access to the right business intelligence. This is according to the Advanced Trends Report 2018/19, which also reveals that there is no clear leader driving technology change across UK businesses. Just 35 percent of C-Suite/Managing Directors are said to be driving technology change, while 51 percent believe responsibility falls to IT, followed by finance (19 percent) and marketing (13 percent). It perhaps comes as no surprise, then, that 59 percent of employees think less than half of people in their organisation are ready to adopt new technology to change the way they work.

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