Horváth: Companies do not achieve their digital transformation goal without a prioritization of projects

• The professional positions that will be increasingly relevant within companies, in the next three years, will be those of: Data Engineer (75%), Product Owner (67%), Business Consultant & Analyst (65%), Scrum Master ( 64%), AI Product Owner (64%), Data Scientist (63%).
• The lack of skilled IT labor is less critical than public opinion suggests: 80% of responding companies do not face problems finding qualified personnel.
• Companies have an urgent need to optimize planning and project portfolio management to ensure efficient use of resources and skills.

The digital skills of employees and jobs related to Big Data and Artificial Intelligence are vital for the success of companies’ digital transformation projects, according to a study by the Horváth management consulting company, with 40 years of international experience and present in Romania since 2005. At the same time, SMEs must realign their internal organization in the context of digital transformation, in order not to be left behind. Among companies with more than 10,000 employees, 57% have digital transformation departments, while only 33% of companies with 250 or fewer employees currently have such departments.

These are some of the results of a study conducted by Horváth and entitled “IT Adaptive Study 2022: Digital Championship empowered by IT”. The study conducted among companies in over 15 industries such as automotive, finance, trade, IT, logistics and consumer goods – shows that success in digital transformation is strongly enabled by IT.

Outsourcing of complex solutions is a key driver of added value from the cloud’s rapid gains. Companies pursue consistent cloud strategies with individual cloud features and services. The choice of a strategy is determined by individual factors such as the size of the company. Thus, 44% of respondents are pursuing a cloud strategy, and 57% of them plan to implement in the next 3 years. As for the hybrid cloud, 62% are already following it, and for 76% it is a priority in 3 years. Regarding private cloud, 62% are already pursuing one and 65% plan to implement in the near future.

“After, in the last two years, priority was given to ensuring the conditions for remote work, in the post-covid period, the importance of data and digital skills, necessary for their exploitation, will return to the foreground. The focus will be on the digitization of the business as a whole, because only 20% of companies can do data management as they want, and a third do not yet have uniform data models. Digital transformation is accelerating in most companies, and the success of this process depends on harmonious collaboration between departments, IT and business experts, as well as understanding the coordination role that a CIO plays. In this ecosystem, the role of the project portfolio management function is crucial in the success of the digital transformation”, said Iulia Malioukis, Principal, Horváth Romania.

IT security is a major goal in the context of cloud-based strategies and is not perceived as a risk in outsourcing. In addition to IT security, study participants agreed that connectivity (75%), IT security (74%), performance (73%), flexibility and cost optimization (73%) and stability (72) were the top goals of a cloud strategy %). Obstacles that companies face in migrating to the cloud are legislative and regulatory, for example GDPR – (72%), cloud readiness of legacy, already existing systems (65%), lack of procurement strategy (60% ) or lack of necessary skills (59%).

The lack of skilled IT workforce is less critical than public opinion suggests: 80% of responding companies do not face problems in finding qualified and suitable personnel to implement strategies. The goal of digital transformation of companies is at risk of not being achieved, especially due to ineffective portfolio management that results in less than optimal consumption of resources. Companies have an urgent need to optimize planning and project portfolio management to ensure efficient use of resources and skills.

The importance of digital skills will increase throughout the coming years in many fields of activity. The recruitment of digital talents along with development trainings are the main factors of a successful digitization. Companies have realized the importance of dedicated roles in the context of digitization, those that require analytical skills in the field of data are in high demand in the market. Thus, the importance of these roles in the next 3 years looks like this: Data Engineer (75%), Product Owner (67%), Business Consultant & Analyst (65%), Scrum Master (64%), AI Product Owner (64%), Data Scientist (63%).