Indian CEOs lead in adoption of digital initiatives in application economy

MUMBAI, INDIA: India has the highest percentage globally where the top executive is driving digital initiatives.

Indian CEOs or main board at 33 percent, vis-à-vis the global average of 24 percent and APJ average of 22 percent, respectively, are leading the drive.

The findings are a part of CA Technologies India results of a global study on the role of software as a business enabler. The study title, Exploiting the Software Advantage: Lessons from Digital Disrupters, ranks India highest globally on the Digital Effectiveness Index (DEI).

Some of the key findings include:
62 percent of the respondents stated that digital transformation is a coordinated strategic program and the top three business areas witnessing digital transformation were customer services, workforce efficiency/ effectiveness and, sales and marketing.

60 percent of Indian organizations use APIs to integrate back-office systems while 56 percent use it for building full-function web applications.

67 percent of respondents said that delivery of new/better customer experiences has been a key API driver followed by 62 percent who stated that extending digital reach and exploration of new business models has been an API driver.

70 percent said they have implemented specific API security measures to protect against identity attacks.

52 percent of Indian organizations have implemented DevOps broadly across their entire IT infrastructure.

65 percent of Indian organizations felt the more proactive contribution of value by IT is the key driver for the adoption of DevOps.

Indian organizations are expecting the benefits from their digital transformation initiatives mainly in the following areas: opening up of new markets (48 percent), creation of new business models (47 percent) and ability to act quickly on opportunities (47 percent).

Among all the digital approaches, 47 percent of respondents identified mobile technology, eg smart phones and tablets, and 43 percent respondents identified Web-based applications, as the top two that are particularly critical with respect to customer engagement and market development.