Dive Brief:

• Fifty-nine percent of companies failed to meet 2019 IT project expectations, carrying a backlog into the New Year, according to a survey of 800 IT decision makers from app integration company MuleSoft.
• A failure to modernize processes will negatively impact the company's revenue within one to five years, 90% of leaders say. Another 73% believe their organization will lose revenue unless the company is able to meet its digital transformation goals in the next 12 months.
• IT leaders say 69% of their time is spent making sure the infrastructure that powers their business is up and running, leaving almost one-third of their bandwidth for innovation and development. 

Dive Insight:

Widely recognized as a business imperative, digital transformation stands to determine which companies can break through the noise in their industries.

For the retail sector, that means taking e-commerce capabilities to the next level. In the travel and transportation industry, the focus is more on customer service and experience. Banks want to unlock the capabilities of cloud and blockchain with one hand, as they battle cyberattackers with the other.

Without timely digital transformation — the big-scope, process-altering kind — businesses can end up facing the same outcomes that gave Blockbuster or Kodak the death knell. And there are recent examples of how businesses failed to respond to changes in their market, and ultimately suffered.

Leaders are in near-universal agreement that digital transformation is key to remaining competitive. But those in charge of deploying impactful technology grapple with time constraints. Reacting to the forces of change in the market means decision makers split their time between sustaining the status quo and keeping up with technological evolution. The split isn't exactly equal.

Overwhelmed tech execs in the C-suite might help explain why; most successful projects are actually spearheaded by CEOs in technologies such as artificial intelligence. Because of this technology's disruptive nature, they're better suited for a CEO's wider lens of leadership.

Carrying out transformative projects without buy-in from employees might also help explain the tech backlog CIOs face. Just 10% of rank-and-file staff say they're directly involved with digital transformation work.