India has firmly entered the digital age with the determination of an economic powerhouse. Its drive for digitalisation is embodied by the government’s Digital India program and the rapid rise in internet users to 700 million, according to a new survey.
The survey sheds light on corporate ambitions, successes, and lingering concerns, while revealing that Indian companies have reported the highest impact from digitisation at 65%.
DBS and Financial Times (FT) Longitude surveyed over 1,225 senior executives from commercial and finance/treasury teams of organisations across 22 markets on their digital transformation journey.
The findings revealed that the most important goals of digital transformation are boosting efficiency and enriching customer experience (40% respectively). This is followed by improving collaboration across functions and teams (33%).
The research found that for Indian businesses, cultural elements that most support digital transformation are collaboration across functions (47%) and diversity in transformation teams (38%). Sales and marketing (38%) and supply chain/procurement (21%) emerged as critical areas of an organisation that urgently need digital transformation. The survey further enlightens the growing role that treasury and finance play in enabling change and innovation.
Indian businesses see cloud technology as essential to realising digital transformation within the treasury and finance function. The research shows that Indian companies (72%) are more likely to prioritise it than the global average of 67%.
Respondents also showed confidence in advanced analytics (38%) and APIs (36%) as tools to transform treasury and finance. Within treasury, financial reporting (51%) is the top priority for digitalisation, followed by investments (45%) and procurement (34%).
It further reveals that strategic partnerships are likely to be a prominent feature of digital transformation, with banks (36%) and fintech partnerships (34%) being the most popular among Indian respondents.
Divyesh Dalal, managing director and head, global transaction services, DBS Bank India, said, “Indian companies have seen the highest transformation success among all the countries at 65% over the global average of 58%. The survey mirrors our interactions with companies in India that are looking for increased efficiency and improved customer experience as the goals of digitisation, as well as their challenges while adopting emerging technologies.”
Although India’s digital transformation is accelerating, a few areas for improvement exist- including the professional skill gap and data privacy. According to the research findings, the skill gap (47%) and data privacy concerns (38%) are major roadblocks for organisations.
Given the significant outcomes accrued by companies through digitisation, working on these areas will be a key priority.
The research survey also identified businesses based on their performance in digitalising their businesses. They are categorised into ‘transformation leaders’, ‘developing leaders’ and ‘transformation laggards’.
12% of Indian respondents are transformation leaders, the second highest proportion of leaders among Asian respondents.
Additionally, 30% of Indian businesses are in the developing leaders’ group, which indicates that the country’s overall count of transformational leaders is poised to increase. However, India’s transformation leaders currently are lower than the laggards (14%).
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