Why some companies are still at square one with their digital transformation projects

Tony Field, Oracle Netsuite ANZ channel GM, discusses why some organisations are struggling to get digital transformation projects off the ground.

Despite the growing trend of AI and cloud adoption, some companies are still at square one figuring out their digital transformation journey

Tony Field, general manager of channel and ecosystems at Oracle NetSuite ANZ told CRN Australia how he is still “amazed” that some end users are at the beginning of their digital transformation journeys.

"Many customers are still operating their business off spreadsheets or older legacy systems,” he said.

“So that whole horizontal approach to digital transformation is still there and just solving business problems which have been around for a long time.”

Digital transformation stagnation occurs when IT procurement teams are not able to demonstrate the value effectively, Field explained.

“That fear of, ‘if I outlay this, what are the returns I'm going to get back?’ It still comes back to that fear. Then of course, adding all the hype around AI that's just contributed to that as well,” he said.

“We have a value management team that supports those partners, provides the tools to really go down into that ROI level and really articulate the benefit they're going to get.

“If they're not going to get that benefit, that's fine at least they understand that, but we go through that deep analysis with our partners to demonstrate that value.”

Field noted that this digital transformation conversation, is not new to vendors and partners alike.

“But the problems are still [here]. That's why we're still growing, and we're still taking customers off spreadsheet, print systems and locally developed legacy systems to a modern architecture,” he added.

With more organisations eyeing AI within their tech stack, Field noted that those who aren’t digitally transformed, won’t be able to harness the technology.

“Fundamentally, if you don't have your tech step correct to start with, you're not going to be able to take advantage of [AI],” he said.

As an industry, Field said he is hearing more discussions about AI and excitement growing, but leaders are hesitant to use the tech.

“Right now, what we're seeing is a bit of a step back,” he said.

He said his customers and partners are asking if AI will give them a good ROI or if they’re better off spending the money and getting the fundamentals right first.

With inflation and cost of living still impacting businesses, Field said he isn’t seeing an impact on digital transformation projects.

“We actually haven't seen a slowdown, and it's something we talk about with our partners and get feedback on,” he said.

"That hasn't impacted our business at all. The hot topics are still AI, as I mentioned, tariffs, of course. We leverage our ecosystem to bring in expertise to discuss topics like that.

“But in terms of cost of living, we actually haven't seen that impact the business.”