GEISHA KOW­LESSAR-ALON­ZO

Se­nior Re­porter

geisha.kow­lessar@guardian.co.tt

A re­cent sur­vey con­duct­ed by the multi­na­tion­al net­work of pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices providers firm, Price­wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers (PwC), showed that cy­ber vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties are in­creas­ing in the Caribbean

These are among the find­ings in PwC’s Dig­i­tal Readi­ness Sur­vey 2024: Fast for­ward or fall be­hind, which not­ed that among the biggest chal­lenges fac­ing busi­ness­es as they look to ac­cel­er­ate dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion and re­alise the re­turn is how – and how quick­ly – to re­tire and re­place their lega­cy sys­tems.

Ac­cord­ing to the sur­vey, on­ly 53 per cent have been able to pri­ori­tise the tech­nol­o­gy and in­fra­struc­ture changes that will have the biggest im­pact on their busi­ness and 37 per cent have im­ple­ment­ed de­sign think­ing and/or ag­ile method­olo­gies for tech­nol­o­gy up­grades.

"Con­cerns over cy­ber­se­cu­ri­ty fur­ther high­light the chal­lenges of cre­at­ing and run­ning a dig­i­tal­ly-pow­ered or­gan­i­sa­tion. More than half of the re­spon­dents (55 per cent) ac­knowl­edge that their abil­i­ty to safe­guard sen­si­tive da­ta and de­fend against emerg­ing threats needs im­prove­ment," the sur­vey added.

The sur­vey of CEOs and oth­er ex­ec­u­tives of lead­ing busi­ness­es across the Caribbean al­so found that while close to 70 per cent see their CEO as a cham­pi­on for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion, less than half of re­spon­dents (42 per cent) think their or­gan­i­sa­tion’s dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is on track and pro­ceed­ing quick­ly enough.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, on­ly 25 per cent strong­ly agree their com­pa­ny en­cour­ages in­no­va­tion and adapt­abil­i­ty.

The sur­vey said this showed a grow­ing sense of ur­gency for Caribbean busi­ness lead­ers to keep pace with rapid ad­vances in tech­nol­o­gy and shift­ing cus­tomer ex­pec­ta­tions.

Ac­cord­ing to the find­ings, about half of Caribbean busi­ness­es sur­veyed (47 per cent) see a re­turn on their dig­i­tal in­vest­ments while 45 per cent of re­spon­dents see ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) as the most crit­i­cal tech­nol­o­gy to their com­pa­ny's strat­e­gy to­day.

More than a third of re­spon­dents (37 per cent) be­lieve their or­gan­i­sa­tion faces a sur­vival-lev­el threat from dig­i­tal dis­rup­tion.

In com­ment­ing on the sur­vey said the re­port un­der­scored the in­creas­ing ur­gency felt by boards, the C-suite and busi­ness teams as they try to keep pace with rapid ad­vances in tech­nol­o­gy and shift­ing cus­tomer ex­pec­ta­tions.

She al­so not­ed that ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence is sharp­en­ing the fo­cus –cre­at­ing a cat­a­lyst for in­no­va­tion and busi­ness mod­el rein­ven­tion on the one side, and a high de­gree of un­cer­tain­ty and con­cern on the oth­er.

“Well-tar­get­ed in­vest­ments in sys­tems and skills are clear­ly crit­i­cal. But they’re not enough on their own to ac­cel­er­ate trans­for­ma­tion and move out in front. The busi­ness­es reap­ing the dig­i­tal div­i­dend are marked by the bold­ness of their am­bi­tion, the readi­ness of their work­force to em­brace new pos­si­bil­i­ties and their agili­ty and re­silience in the face of con­tin­u­al dis­rup­tion and change,” Pa­ton added.

Price­wa­ter­house­C­oop­ers In­ter­na­tion­al Ltd is a multi­na­tion­al pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices brand of firms, op­er­at­ing as part­ner­ships un­der the PwC brand.