Investment in productivity, improving digital presence, and reducing operational costs will drive new growth opportunities

Frost & Sullivan’s survey research, An End-user Perspective on Navigating Digital Transformation, Latin America, 2017, aims to understand the key IT-related challenges faced by regional companies, monitor the status of digital transformation (including newer solutions such as AI, AR/VR, and mCommerce), assess uses of business communication technologies, evaluate drivers behind investments in communication technology and appraise IT budgets.

“Latin America organizations are highly interested in digital transformation, with fintech, omnichannel marketing, and API strategy being the top three investments in IT over the next two years,” said Alpa Shah, Digital Transformation Global Vice President at Frost & Sullivan. “Established providers and new market entrants will have opportunities to grow revenues in this region by focusing on these investment areas.”

Key research findings include:

1. The top challenge for IT departments in Latin America is the ability to align IT with business strategies and/or not having a clear IT strategy (30% of respondents), followed by security concerns (26%), and network stability (26%).
2. About 65% of respondents in Latin America plan to increase their IT budgets, with an average increase of 28%.
3. The top three security concerns are malware (51% of respondents), cyber-crime and espionage (49%), and cloud services (39%).
4. The top IT investment drivers include improving productivity (36%), improving digital presence (33%), and reducing operational costs (31%).
5. Customer experience has the greatest impact on revenue growth; data centers are the top investments for cost-reduction efforts.
6. About 37% of respondents who implemented IoT believe that its key benefits are automating manual processes and optimizing field and on-site operations.
7. Social media allows organizations to stay in better touch with customers through customer feedback and the ability to identify user trends.

“Aside from security and reliability, IT decision makers in Latin America are very interested in gaining access to cutting-edge features through cloud solutions,” concluded Renato Pasquini, Digital Transformation Research and Consulting Director, Latin America at Frost & Sullivan. “Companies that can effectively help end-user industries implement a digital transformation strategy will succeed.”

An End-user Perspective on Navigating Digital Transformation, Latin America, 2017 is part of Frost & Sullivan’s Digital Transformation Growth Partnership Service program. The research included 285 interviews in total.