New global research commissioned by enterprise technology provider IFS from International Data Corporation (IDC) has found that companies are missing transformative opportunities and insight due to outdated technologies and a lack of Board-level understanding about how modern software solutions can unlock business data. The study was conducted by IFS, Boomi and IDC and surveyed over 1,000 business leaders from industries such as manufacturing, energy and utilities, aerospace defence, construction engineering, telecoms, and service industries.

The research unveiled potential reasons for the lack of technological success in organisations. Notably, many of the leaders believe they have successfully overcome the disruptions of the past three years. But they cited challenges including working capital and inventory imbalances (56%), unpredictable demand (53%), and unstable supply chains (48%). Meanwhile, they pin the blame on legacy applications (60%), lack of integration (48%), and inflexible applications (43%) for hampering their efforts and impacting their ability to mitigate risks efficiently.

The research further highlighted the negative consequences of outdated technologies like departmental silos (18%) and a lack of data visibility (24%), which limit companies in their long-term planning. These challenges also pose a major liability to the business' agility in responding to further disruptions. The study found that a clear 41% of organisations lack a composable strategy, a move which risks businesses' stagnation and accumulates technical debt.

Despite more than 70% of respondents understanding the value of a composable architecture, only 19% of the Boards are clear about the value it creates, indicating a need for education and stronger business cases that highlight its benefits in the short, medium and long term. The research suggested that supply chain (51%), procurement (47%) and customer service and support (40%) are the areas that could significantly benefit from composability, along with customer experience (36%) and scaling to new business opportunities (51%).

Another barrier is the executive/Board's understanding (54.5%) of the value of composability and not progressing adequately in their cloud journey (50%). Alex Rumble, SVP Product Marketing and Corporate Communications at IFS, asserted that, "Composability is different, the end state is not about technology, but about pulling together data that will accelerate leveraging AI and realising business value faster, with benefits in speed of innovation and time to market, business-wide efficiency, and increased people and asset productivity."

Rumble further noted, "Composability is a data play that enables agility and mid and long-term planning, whether that’s around investment in field assets, or capex planning on factories, or pursuing new revenue streams. The positive news is that functional and operational leaders recognise the transformational impact and now need to secure board-level education and shift in thinking in the dependency between composability and AI."