Microsoft is the latest company to release data highlighting the languid uptake of new technologies, claiming that 71% of UK businesses “failed to deliver on digital”.
While many companies understand their, adoption - specifically, successful and well-thought-out adoption - is relatively low, and those that have adopted are often found to be failing. Worker-aiding tools, for example, have been found to slow down workers when deployed incorrectly.
The data comes from 600 British businesses, 72% of which said that their organization needed a clear path to reach its digital transformation goals and that meaningful changes were not happening due to such slow progress.
The digital workplace
While the study indicated that business leaders understand the need for better technology, it’s clear that they don’t have the right information to make an informed decision on which tools they need. Over three-quarters (76%) said that with their current tools, they have noticed an increase in administrative tasks like data entry and document processing.
The reason for this could be that over two-thirds (69%) were overwhelmed by the sheer amount of collaboration tools available to them. Guidance is clearly needed because a quarter (26%) of respondents said that they’d planned to increase the number of tools available to employees, likely in a bid to keep up in a race they have little context of. More than half (59%) of decision-makers had no plans to consolidate solutions.
Moving forward, Microsoft reckons it has a solution: artificial intelligence. The company has publicly backed organizations like OpenAI (the maker of ChatGPT) for several years, so it’s little wonder the IT giant is keen to push AI; it has already integrated it into its Bing search engine and business software.
Less biased, though, is the company's remark that employees on the whole don’t feel part of the decision-making process with regard to the tools they use, making it clear that more open dialogue needs to be promoted in most companies.
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