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<\/a><\/p>\nDimension Data has released its latest digital workplace report, revealing how technology is changing South Africa’s business landscape.<\/p>\n
The global report is based on a survey of\u00a0850 business and IT leaders driving technology and organisational changes in their companies. The goal was to determine how organisations are evolving from a\u00a0traditional office environment to a digital workplace.<\/p>\n
Survey participants work at organisations with at least 1,000 employees, representing seven industries.<\/p>\n
In South Africa, Dimension Data spoke to 73 executives of companies with at least 1,000 employees.<\/p>\n
The report found that\u00a042% of organisations in South Africa have employees working from home full-time today, with 67% saying they will have employees working from home full-time within the next two years.<\/p>\n
On a global scale, this figure is 10% lower.<\/p>\n
In comparison,\u00a035% have employees in South Africa working from home part-time today, with 79% saying they will have employees working from home part of the time two years from now.<\/p>\n
Unsurprisingly, the surveyed companies found that the biggest barrier to this change\u00a0was getting other parts of the business to buy into such an initiative.<\/p>\n
Three quarters (67%) of South African organisations identify this as being the most common form of resistance, 14 percentage points higher than those reported globally.<\/p>\n
According to Dimension Data, South African organisations are very clear on the primary objective associated with a digital workplace strategy – with 49% stating that gaining a competitive advantage was the most important goal.<\/p>\n While this was also a priority globally, improving business processes and growing revenues was equally important for global organisations.<\/p>\n For South African organisations, the CEO is the most influential driver of change with respect to new digital workplaces, with 33% of businesses surveyed highlighting this.<\/p>\n A quarter of South African organisations advised that the CFO is a key driver of change, considerably more than the 16% of global companies that identified that position as being the most influential champion of change.<\/p>\n The IT director and the CIO also have a high degree of influence in South African organisations.<\/p>\n Globally, the IT director and CEO have influence that is equal with that of the CIO.<\/p>\n Interestingly, despite a clear desire to push towards digitisation, Dimension Data noted that many South African organisations are yet to define a comprehensive digital workplace strategy.<\/p>\n It noted that\u00a062% of South African organisations haven’t developed a formal and comprehensive strategy around how they deploy or plan to benefit from digital workplace technology.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\nWhy there’s such a big push<\/strong><\/h3>\n