- The maturity of the digital transformation of the United States is below the global average
- Workers do not have adequate tools or training
- Basic security measures are missing
Despite world class investments in AI and other technologies, US companies are lagging behind when it comes to digital transformation, said new research.
A Zoho report found that up to two out of five (39%) American organizations are still only in the early stages of the transformation, with the entire country that classifies 1.2 percentage points below the global average in terms of transformation maturity.
The slow progress is being blamed for security weaknesses and the adoption of delayed tools, with only 15% of workers who feel that the tools in the workplace meet their expectations, with a separate Walkme investigation that only 28% of employees feel properly trained.
The American digital transformation is lagging
Zoho pointed out that progressing from level 2 (standardization) to level 3 (structured operations) could take between three and five years, reaching $ 250-500 per employee annually. Reach level 4 (optimized digital operations) requires about double resources: 10 or more years and $ 500-1,000 per employee every year.
It is still said that most companies (85%) depend on the manual delegation of tasks on automation, with hospitality, logistics and retail trade that have more than their expert counterparts in technology and financial industries. SMEs also stay behind the largest companies, probably due to the most limited resources, and Walkme’s research supports this, discovering that only one in four uses AI to improve efficiency.
Some of the outstanding problems include a poor implementation of multifactor authentication (MFA) (used by only half of the companies analyzed), the provision of safe access policies such as VPN (available for only one in four) and limited physical security controls (adopted for less than one in three).
To put a price on losses, Walkme estimates $ 104 million in losses during 2024 due to underutilized technology, as well as 36 days wasted every year for inefficient workers. On the other hand, adequate digital adoption could almost triple transformation investments.
“American companies have solid foundations in collaboration and digital tools, but security inefficiencies and processes are the main barriers to transformation,” said Zoho’s evangelist chief, Raju Vegesna.
