How are UK businesses driving digital transformation?
In today’s increasingly digital business environment, organisations of all sizes must stay agile and embrace innovation to thrive. Digital transformation is reshaping the business landscape.
Digital transformation involves embracing technology and new working methods to change how businesses operate, deliver value to customers and interact with stakeholders.
Our research shows that almost a quarter of companies (22%) have already embraced multiple technologies enabling digital transformation. Another fifth (18%) are implementing new technologies to transform their products, services and operations.
While larger businesses have been pioneers in digital transformation, greater accessibility of tools such as Artificial Intelligence, Data & Analytics, and Fibre Connectivity enables small and medium-sized companies to catch up.
Over a third of SMEs are implementing multiple technologies to support their transformation.
The Manufacturing, Finance & Accounting, and IT & Computing industries are the most advanced in digital transformation plans. More than half of the companies surveyed in these sectors have made significant progress on their digital transformation plans, and fewer than one in six in each industry continue to operate in a traditional analogue fashion.
The digital transformation of UK businesses continues at pace. Our research suggests that nearly half of UK businesses (40%) will have adopted multiple new technologies that support digital transformation by the end of 2024:
- AI use will increase from 26% to 38% of UK businesses and reach 90% of medium and large enterprises this year. 96% of Finance & Accounting businesses, 92% of IT & Computing firms and 89% of Manufacturing companies we surveyed said they would use AI by the end of 2024.
- More than a third (37%) of all businesses will use some form of Automation to streamline repetitive tasks and enhance operational efficiency this year. The proportion of businesses using Automation increases to at least 80% for businesses with more than 10 people, while in Manufacturing, where Automation is already commonplace, adoption will reach 93% of companies.
- Data & Analytics adoption will also reach 37% of the business community this year, although as with Automation, the overall figure is skewed downwards by relatively low levels of adoption among businesses with fewer than 10 people. Among small businesses with 10 – 49 people and medium-sized companies employing 50 – 249 people, adoption will reach 80% and 95% of firms respectively this year. Our survey also suggests that data, analytics and other business intelligence tools will be most commonplace among Finance & Accounting (94%) and Manufacturing (93%) companies.
- Our survey suggests that Cloud Computing adoption will increase from 36% of businesses to 59% in 2024. This significant leap is being driven by a near doubling of cloud use among businesses with just one person, from 30% to 56%, as well as more moderate increases for larger companies where the use of cloud is already more common.
These technologies share a common requirement: fast, secure and dependable connectivity. That’s part of the reason why the use of Fibre Connectivity (either Fibre-to-the-Premises or Dedicated Ethernet connectivity) will surpass 80% of small and medium companies for the first time in 2024.
Read next > Is your business equipped for digital transformation?