Technical debt is the biggest barrier to digital transformation for companies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, new research shows.
A report from Red Hat shows that one in four (28%) companies in EMEA have had their digital transformation hindered by technical debt that has accumulated over time.
With the grim reality of companies’ pasts holding them back from development, cloud management will be the biggest investment priority in the region over the next twelve months, Red Hat says.
Digital transformation issues
This study is consistent with other studies in its findings across a wide range of infrastructure landscapes. It is not the first to show that on-site applications come out on top (with 47%). Another 40% of companies were using hybrid cloud environments, leaving just 12% in the public cloud.
Respondents confirmed that data privacy and security were among the top reasons for choosing to run at least some of their applications on-premises, but cloud environments remain attractive due to their cost benefits.
In addition to the complexities surrounding the decision to go fully cloud, on-premise or a hybrid of the two, executives also noted that manual processes and IT operations, as well as the skills and talent shortage, are leading to poor outcomes in the area of digital transformation.
In terms of funding priorities for the coming year, network security, threat intelligence, vulnerability detection and response, and management all appear to be key areas of focus.
Despite the barriers to digital transformation, the report finds that automation of security and cloud services is gaining ground. The insights also suggest that cloud will make up a larger part of business operations, with the sector seeing a spending boost this year.
