Companies around the world spend less than 5% of their revenue on technology, including so-called cutting-edge technology organizations that have a well-defined vision and strategy and a developed technology department, according to the Deloitte Global Technology Leadership 2020 study.

The study was conducted among 1,300 business and technology leaders from 69 countries, including Romania.

The study also shows that only 11% of organizations are at the forefront of technology and that almost a third of the leaders of these companies (29%) can play a visionary role, twice as many as traditional organizations (14%), according to Agerpres.

The similarities between the two types of organizations are also visible when it comes to budgets allocated for innovation, as 20% of cutting-edge technology companies invest in this area, a bit over the percentage of traditional organizations (15%).

“The pandemic has accelerated plans to adopt technology and digitalization, giving leaders an unprecedented opportunity to transform their businesses. Organizations need, more than ever, leaders with knowledge of technology as companies become more technical, and the study even points out that CEOs view technology leaders as key strategic partners, rather than leaders of all other functions alltogether,” said Vladimir Aninoiu, Technology Director at Deloitte Romania’s consulting practice.

According to the Deloitte Global Technology Leadership 2020 study, the main element that helps cutting-edge technology companies outperform traditional organizations is their ability to use technology to grow their business, supported by operational cadence and strategic priorities, not just within IT departments, but also throughout the organization. State-of-the-art technology companies focus on innovation (66%) and customers (60%), and their technology departments are more involved throughout the innovation process, from the anticipation phase (52%) to the achievement phase of a prototype (56%) and implementation (47%).

At the same time, the technology departments of these organizations are 2.5 times more likely to be considered extremely efficient or very effective (66%) in defining customer experiences and interactions with them, compared to technology departments in traditional organizations (27%), from which companies expect to develop such skills over time. Two-thirds of technology leaders (67%) in cutting-edge organizations expect technology departments to contribute to transforming their approach to customers in the near future by focusing on them, compared to only 43% of traditional organizations.