Dell claims the UK is lagging behind in digital transformation
Vendor's research states that majority of UK businesses are struggling with digital transformation strategies
The UK lags behind developing countries such as India, Brazil and Thailand in keeping pace with digital maturity, according to research published by Dell.
The Dell Technologies Digital Transformation Index surveyed 4,600 business leaders from medium-sized to large organisations across 42 countries.
It launched its inaugural survey in 2016.
The data found that emerging markets are the most digitally mature and are more confident in their ability to "disrupt rather than be disrupted" compared with developed markets.
India, Brazil and Thailand topped the global ranking, with Japan, Denmark and France receiving the lowest maturity scores.
The UK ranked behind Spain and Russia, placed 14th and 17th respectively.
The vendor states that the digital transformation of many organisations is still immature.
It reported that 71 per cent of of UK business leaders admitted that digital transformation is not as widespread in their companies as it should be.
Over a fifth of UK respondents think they will struggle to meet changing customer demands in the next five years, while 19 per cent are worried that their business will be left behind.
Digital transformation in the UK reflects the slow progress made worldwide since the 2016 report, with only 27 per cent of UK respondents described as having mature digital transformation plans.
CEO Michael Dell stated: "In the near future, every organisation will need to be a digital organisation, but our research indicates that the majority still have a long way to go.
"Organisations need to modernise their technology to participate in the unprecedented opportunity of digital transformation. The time to act is now."
Barriers to transformation
The research also reports that a whopping 91 per cent of global respondents stated that their transformation was held back by "persistent barriers".
The biggest impediment is data privacy and security concerns according to 34 per cent of respondents, followed by lack of budget and resources (33 per cent), the skills shortage (27 per cent), changes in regulations and legislation (27 per cent) and an immature digital culture (24 per cent).
For UK business leaders, however, the biggest obstacle was budget and resources, with 41 per cent citing it as the top impediment for their business.
However, those surveyed indicated that they will increase focus on workforce, security and IT in order to overcome these challenges to aid future transformation.
Nearly half (46 per cent) of global respondents said they are developing in-house skills to tackle the skills shortage - such as teaching all employees how to code - which is up from 27 per cent in 2016.
In the 2016 Index, only 27 per cent of UK respondents stated that they were developing in-house skills training, but this number has jumped to 49 per cent in this year's report.
Consumer confidence
However, UK business can take heart in that it bucks the trend when it comes to consumer confidence.
Only 16 per cent of UK respondents said that they will struggle to prove their trustworthiness in the next five years, compared with 49 per cent of their global counterparts.
However, the research indicates that a third of those surveyed - both in the UK and worldwide - don't trust their own organisation to comply with GDPR, and only 26 per cent of UK business leaders trust their own organisation to protect customer data.
Over half of respondents stated that cybersecurity will be their top tech investment for the next three years, followed by Internet of Things (46 per cent), multi-cloud (44 per cent), artificial intelligence (40 per cent) and a compute-centric approach (35 per cent).