A sur­vey of more than 2,500 busi­ness­es across the Caribbean has shown that while there has been an in­crease in the num­ber of or­gan­i­sa­tions that have a strat­e­gy in place for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion (77 per cent in 2024 vs 61 per cent in 2022), 60 per cent of those sur­veyed re­port­ed be­ing de­layed in the roll out of their dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion plan.

These were among the find­ings of Dig­i­cel Busi­ness' 2024 Caribbean Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Re­port, in col­lab­o­ra­tion with Symp­tai Con­sult­ing Ltd which was re­leased and delved in­to the progress and chal­lenges faced by busi­ness­es across the re­gion.

Evolv­ing from the need for dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion that the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic high­light­ed, the re­port pro­vid­ed an un­der­stand­ing of the cur­rent re­gion­al state of readi­ness and ac­tion­able in­sights to nav­i­gate this jour­ney.

The study al­so not­ed that the top three bar­ri­ers to suc­cess that came up were sys­tems not be­ing prop­er­ly in­te­grat­ed (35 per cent), key re­sources be­ing con­sumed with op­er­a­tional is­sues (34 per cent) and in­ad­e­quate pri­or­i­ty set­ting and lack of fo­cus from the se­nior lev­el of the or­gan­i­sa­tion (31 per cent).

In com­ment­ing on the study, Marce­lo Catal­do, Dig­i­cel Group’s CEO said, “Un­der­stand­ing how im­por­tant dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is to the busi­ness life cy­cle, this re­port helps by pro­vid­ing da­ta that can be used to dri­ve trans­for­ma­tion jour­neys. Our aim is to reach busi­ness­es at var­i­ous stages of their jour­ney—whether they are ini­ti­at­ing, pro­gress­ing, or re­assess­ing their strate­gies—to pro­vide them with valu­able in­sights and sup­port.”

The re­port al­so con­tained key in­sights for spe­cif­ic in­dus­tries and groups, in­clud­ing hos­pi­tal­i­ty, fi­nan­cial ser­vices, gov­ern­ment/pub­lic sec­tor and small and medi­um sized en­ter­pris­es.

It em­pha­sised that with the im­por­tance of dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy grow­ing from 44 per cent in 2021 and ex­pect­ed to reach 95 per cent by 2025, it’s crit­i­cal that the var­i­ous in­dus­tries lever­age their dig­i­tal ca­pa­bil­i­ties to serve their cus­tomers and cit­i­zens ef­fec­tive­ly.

“Trans­for­ma­tion doesn’t hap­pen overnight, but is a process of on­go­ing eval­u­a­tion and im­prove­ment. By work­ing with best-in-class glob­al part­ners we’re able to pro­vide bet­ter so­lu­tions for bet­ter busi­ness,” Catal­do added.

Mean­while, Mar­lon Coop­er, Symp­tai’s CEO added that the goal of dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion is to pro­vide bet­ter con­di­tions in the every­day lives of peo­ple, busi­ness­es and stake­hold­ers.

"In a dig­i­tal­ly trans­formed Caribbean, we could be an ex­porter of tech­nol­o­gy prod­ucts and ser­vices and a con­trib­u­tor to in­no­va­tion. Do­ing busi­ness is easy, be­cause al­most all ser­vices are on­line, which leads to an ex­plo­sion in en­tre­pre­neur­ship, has­sle-free tax col­lec­tion and trust in e-so­lu­tions. We’re all in a large in­ter­con­nect­ed dig­i­tal ecosys­tem and this re­port pro­vides clear op­por­tu­ni­ties and steps to achiev­ing this fu­ture," Coop­er added.