Irish businesses moving to ‘post-digital’ world, survey finds

Irish businesses are moving to a “post-digital” world, where digital technologies are now at the heart of businesses and the focus is shifting towards personalisation.

That's according to a new survey from Accenture, which found two-thirds of Irish executives believe digital technologies such as social, mobile, analytics and cloud have broken out of their narrow initial adoptions and moved into the broader organisation. About three-quarters said the next wave of competitive advantage for businesses would be the integration of customisation and real-time delivery.

The Accenture Technology Vision Research 2019 identified a number of trends among Irish businesses, with artificial intelligence topping the list.

Almost 90 per cent said the pace of innovation in their organisations has accelerated over the past three years, with emerging technologies believed to be responsible for that growth.

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But the notion of post-digital does not mean that digital is finished, but rather that companies need to develop something to set them apart from the rest, using the new technologies to innovate.

"In previous year the Tech Vision survey has spoken a lot about the need for businesses to embed digital technologies. Businesses have been focused on digital transformation," said David Kirwan, head of technology at Accenture in Ireland. "Doing digital is no longer enough."

Artificial intelligence

More than a third of Irish executives said artificial intelligence would be the top technology impacting their organisation over the next three years, with extended reality coming in behind it. The latter was much lower on the global list of priorities, Mr Kirwan said.

Employees with increasing digital skill sets, security and the ability to meet customers’ needs on demand are also among the top trends expected to impact businesses in the coming years.

Consumer expectations are rapidly changing, offering businesses the opportunity to personalise their customer experiences, with 74 per cent of those surveyed saying consumers’ digital demographics are becoming a more powerful way to understand customers.

However, although progress has been made there is also a certain lag between the digital maturity of employees and that of the organisations in which they work, meaning businesses are playing catch-up.

“Employees will force it, particularly the next generation coming through,” said Mr Kirwan.

The Accenture research surveyed more than 100 Irish business and IT executives, with the wider report including the views of more than 6.600 businesses and IT executives worldwide.