Caribbean businesses have set bold ambitions for digitisation, but PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) Caribbean Digital Readiness Survey 2021 reveals a wide gap between organisations out in front and those struggling to make headway.

According to the study released last week, most respondents believe that they’re meeting or exceeding targets on integrating new technologies into business processes, and products and services — with 42 per cent on target and 28 per cent ahead.

Only 15 per cent believe that their digital fitness is on par with or ahead of the leaders in their industry. But that leaves more than a quarter in the Caribbean region who acknowledge that they are behind target.

For these Caribbean organisations, further upskilling is critical.

Nearly half of respondents (46 per cent) believe their organisation is behind in training workers with skills for the digital era, to which they cited lack of time and budget as the top barriers.

In addition, they indicated that the lack of alignment/clarity on roles and responsibilities relating to digital ownership, and inflexible or slow processes as the biggest challenges to their overall digital transformation.

PwC Jamaica’s Territory Leader Leighton McKnight commented, “Most leaders know that digital transformation involves optimising the integration of digital technology into all areas of the business. However, for many of our survey respondents, it’s a journey that began only in about the last three years. But the shift to digital and remote working, brought on by the pandemic in 2020, has increased pressure to accelerate progress.

“For Caribbean organisations, the game-changing potential of digitisation includes more informed data-driven decisions, a more compelling employee, customer and stakeholder experience, and more tailored and targeted products and services. With so many digital possibilities, however, what’s critical here is investing in the right ones,” he said.

Concurrently, 73 per cent of respondents believe that use of digital technologies has boosted workforce productivity, and 57 per cent believe it has increased employee satisfaction. This further resulted in 56 per cent of respondents indicating that they expect at least 30 per cent of their employees to work remotely for more than one day a week each year from now.

The survey also revealed that more than 80 per cent of businesses are focusing their digital strategy on modernising their brand with new capabilities ahead of doing what they have always done faster and more efficiently.

Respondents in the November 2020 survey to gauge the digital readiness of their organisations and priorities for the future, included 92 senior executives from leading businesses in a variety of industries across the Caribbean, including The Bahamas, Eastern Caribbean, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago.