South African Businesses have realised that their workers are their greatest asset for driving transformation projects, according to recent research.
Independently commissioned by computer and electronics firm Dell - the company's Technologies Survey revealed that 88% of business leaders regard their people as their greatest asset.
In comparison, 69% of them believe their organisation underestimates the staffing requirements when planning transformation programmes.
In contrast, the study also revealed that 61% of all employees say their business needs to provide the necessary tools and infrastructure to enable flexible working in a way that suits everyone.
As one of the biggest global IT companies, Dell said that it has been making its own push toward accelerating digital transformation over the past two years.
General Manager of Dell Technologies South Africa, Doug Woolley, said that more than half of IT leaders say their organisation knows what it takes to transform a workforce digitally.
Still, many employees face a challenge to keep up the pace after such rapid change, according to a new Dell Technologies survey.
"The results highlight how the recent period of rapid transformation is leaving businesses and their workforce in need of time to recharge, reflect and refine before embarking on new or iterating on projects," Woolley said.
"Despite the huge progress and efforts of the past few years, the research highlights the potential for transformation to stall, as 62% of respondents believe their people's resistance to change can lead to failure,” he said.
“While 50% say they are still worried that they may be left behind due to a lack of senior vision/authority to now capitalise on the opportunity in front of them.”
Woolley added that a sustainable breakthrough in transformation happens at the intersection of people and technology along three frontiers: connectivity, productivity and empathy.
“Building your breakthrough requires optimising your organisation to uncover strategic insights with simplicity, speed and scale,” he said.
“By connecting people, applications and data, you can power your organisation with trusted IT solutions and focus on inspiring innovation rather than managing infrastructure.”
Another recent study titled 'Digital Futures: South Africa's Digital Readiness for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, prepared by Research ICT Africa, stated that while it cannot be taken for granted that technology will translate to wage growth or productivity growth - a good set of complementary policies needs to be established at a business and government level.
Amid South Africa's evident push toward greater digitalisation ahead of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR), Dell's report benchmarked the local workforce's readiness for digital change.
According to the research, the workforce is comprised today as follows:
The report's findings come amidst a stronger stance by the government for a push toward digitalisation.
Most recently, the KwaZulu-Natal government made its attempts to leverage digitalisation by pinning its hopes of economic recovery on a stronger push toward a digital economy and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
With the province marred by recent civil unrest and the impact felt by April's flood disaster, the provincial government is making a stronger push toward digitalisation through a series of programmes focused around up-skilling the youth in ITC.
On the broadcasting frontier, despite failing to meet the country's analogue switch-off date of 30 June 2022, the SABC launched its SABC+ platform last week, allowing users access to all its radio stations and TV channels, online and free to drive the broadcast digital migration.
IOL Tech