A study by Workday, a global leader in enterprise technology for finance and human resources, has revealed that over half (60 percent) of C-level executives in Singapore believe their digital transformation projects are failing due to company silos.
The study titled “Digital Dysfunction in Asia Pacific”, was conducted in partnership with IDC Asia Pacific, and reveals the barriers to digital transformation from the perspectives of 1,000 C-level and business leaders.
Sixty percent of C-level executives surveyed in Singapore view organisational silos and conflict between departments as key challenges for digital transformation. HR leaders feel the most pain (87 percent), followed by Finance leaders (58 percent) and IT leaders (50 percent). The result shows that organisations are not approaching digital transformation as a collaborative cross-functional process between Finance, HR and IT departments. Thus, companies are ignoring their two most important assets: their people and finances.
According to the survey, 76 percent of C-level executives say their organisation is yet to achieve any major return on investment (ROI) improvements in digital transformation, of which 53 percent of C-level executives say they have not achieved any measurable ROI. This may be due to a failure by organisations to use a balanced scorecard approach to align and measure investments and ROI, with only 28 percent of Finance respondents and IT respondents are using balanced scorecards, followed by 27 percent for HR leaders.
Sixty-four percent of C-level executives in Singapore see lack of common technologies and processes as the top barriers to cross-functional collaboration and believe organisations should make more investments in the right technologies (42 percent) as one of their priorities to drive digitalisation. The top priority for organisations is to implement new and better metrics and key performance indicators (49 percent).
From the perspective of HR and Finance leaders, 93 percent of HR leaders and 50 percent of Finance leaders say an integrated Finance and HR technology solution is important for greater visibility, despite 83 percent of Finance leaders and 80 percent of HR leaders saying their processes are not fully integrated across departments. This reveals a need for investment in digital transformation to improve efficacy.
Rob Wells, President, Workday Asia, said:
“It’s astounding to see how many digital transformation initiatives within organisations are failing. While functional levels may have digital initiatives, true digital transformation must happen at the enterprise level and implicitly cross-functional in nature to succeed.
“The right and effective technology can help business leaders, HR, Finance and IT to disassemble information silos and reimagine the business in a way that allows an organisation to stay competitive in a disrupt-or-be-disrupted world. The advent of cloud technology in Financial and HR management will allow business planning to be more strategic, collaborative and real-time, especially if brought together in one single system for maximum benefit. The power of one.”
Daniel-Zoe Jimenez, AVP & Head of DX, Future Enterprise & SMB, IDC Asia Pacific, said:
“The IDC/Workday survey results are consistent with IDC’s research, and show that while close to 85 percent of organisations in Singapore are undergoing digital transformation, 68 percent are stuck in their DX journey. The key theme that comes through in this research is the lack of collaboration and integration among different functions. Digital transformation is a team sport and requires strong support from the top and close collaboration among team members, from HR and Finance to IT and digital teams. Key investment in the right technologies will help both increase employee and finance visibility and drive cross departmental collaboration, accelerating DX success.”
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