Enterprise wastes £250bn a year on failed digital projects, finds report

Only 30 per cent of firms successfully align technology and analytics to business outcome

Enterprises waste $400bn (£258bn) a year on digital projects that fail due to misjudged business transformation strategies, a report by Genpact has found.

Business consultancy Genpact surveyed 100 global enterpries for this study, which found that only 30 per cent of firms consulted agreed that they successfully align their technology and analytics decisions to business outcomes that deliver return on investment (RoI).

"Only 26 per cent of executives surveyed feel their analytics initiatives meet or exceed their expected business outcomes. Investments in digital technologies do not fare much better; just 31 per cent say results meet or exceed expectations," reads the report.

The report also finds that just less than a third of respondents believe that "poor communication between IT and business teams" when attempting to implement business transformation processes was an obstacle to attaining RoI. An ongoing lack of appropriate business intelligence tools, access to relevant talent and legacy processes and systems unable to capture required data accounted for another third of respondents.

But with 71 per cent of respondents saying their enterprise had a "high" or "extremely high" emphasis on digital technologies to improve business operations, and 64 per cent placing the same emphasis on analytics, Genpact argues there's a mismatch between the projects companies are attempting to carry out, and their level of preparedness for those projects.

"Despite evidence of the revolutionary power of digital technology and analytics, and increasing investments in these areas, the vast majority of companies' operating leaders only see, at best, 'some benefits' from their deployments," states the report.

"Combined, digital technology and analytics challenges currently can hold back many enterprises from realising the promise of reimagining how enterprises create and run intelligent operations that sense, act, and learn from their actions," it continues.

"The research illustrates how many companies do not fully benefit from the billions of dollars currently spent on digital initiatives."

Digital transformation remains big business for the enterprise, with HMRC recently stumping up a £162,500 salary in search of a "cloud transformation director" that shares its "vision".