India rides high on IT quotient: PwC’s Digital IQ Survey

New Delhi: The Indian companies are investing heavily in Social networks, Mobile computing, Analytics and Cloud computing (SMAC) with a vision to drive business growth and combat the changing economic and market structures.

India Inc’s investment consistently surpasses its  global counterparts in all aspects of SMAC with 42% of Indian companies investing in social media as part of external communications for customers and suppliers (global average 33%), 48% investment in public cloud applications (global average 24%) and 40% in adopting mobile technologies for customers (global average 31%).

The India cut of PwC’s fifth Annual Digital IQ Survey evaluates the digital astuteness of Indian organisations, and assesses how enterprises are riding the digital wave to effectively engage with crucial stakeholders, finetune operational effectiveness and strengthen risk management strategies. The report also states that in these unprecedented changing economic and market structures and volatile global economies, speeding up the adoption of key technologies such as SMAC along with other emerging technologies can help organisations transform their businesses, creating significant economic and competitive value.

Rajesh Rajan, Emerging Technologies Leader, PwC India says, “With emerging technologies, next-gen professionals are embracing the idea of 'a new home at work' where mobility, cloud, analytics and social media provides a new dimension to seamless work access and business action. Mobility defines the new ways of getting to work, cloud becomes the workplace, analytics provides business sense and social media transforms into the platform to engage with colleagues and customers. In a new age, this could create a whole new eco-system that ushers in a new level of agility, while redefining the traditional work environment."

The level of involvement of a Chief Information Officer (CIO) or an IT Head with the rest of the C-suite, while formulating the business strategy of a company is crucial to the digital astuteness of a company. Around 85% of the Indian companies are digitally astute, as measured by C-suite collaboration in comparison to 54% in the US and 69% in the UK. 71% of the Indian companies have a single multi-year roadmap and IT leaders in 80% of those companies shared a detailed understanding of corporate strategy at par with their CEOs.

Mobility for employees and harnessing big data are also areas of strong investment for the Indian companies. 48% of the respondents are investing in data mining and analysis technologies as analytics combined with a comprehensive social media strategy will improve customer service and reduce costs.

Nearly 60% of the survey respondents plan to invest in mobile technologies for employees and around 40% are building capabilities using the help of third parties.  35% of respondents consider their employees to be already equipped with the required mobile technology to deliver products and services.

This report provides an insight into the efforts of the companies to embed IT in all business areas as well as looks at how vital digital astuteness and IT-business alignment are advancing and achieving their business objectives.

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