CA Technologies study reveals India tops the digital effectiveness index globally

CA Technologies announced the India results of a global study on the role of software as a business enabler. The study, Exploiting the Software Advantage: Lessons from Digital Disrupters, ranks India highest globally on the Digital Effectiveness Index (DEI). India has the highest percentage globally where the top executive is driving digital initiatives; the CEO or main board (33%), in contrast to the global average of 24% and APJ average of 22%. 62% 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.

The Digital Effectiveness Index (DEI), a measurement tool developed from responses relating to market competitiveness and business scorecard metrics, was also introduced by the survey. Translated into numerical scores and combined to form the DEI, survey participants were segmented according to their index scores into Digital Disruptors, Digital Achievers and Mainstream categories.  However, as a country that holds the highest score (7.1) on the DEI in the world, India’s Digital Disruptors account for 25% of the total number of organizations, ranking second worldwide. The percentages of Digital Achievers and Mainstream are 36% and 39% of the total, respectively.

Notably, the APJ Digital Disruptors have two times higher revenue growth and two times higher profit growth than the Mainstream organizations. They also share common features, such as strong appreciation for the role of software and apps, focus on modern software development and delivery methods such as Agile and DevOps, managed use of APIs in engaging the developer ecosystem as well as high emphasis on emerging digital channels to the customer.

Additional Key findings:

• 60% of Indian organizations use APIs to integrate ‘back-office’ systems while 56% use it for building full-function web applications
• 67% of respondents said that delivery of new/better customer experiences has been a key API driver followed by 62% who stated that extending digital reach and exploration of new business models has been an API driver
• 70% said they have implemented specific API security measures to protect against identity attacks
• 52% of Indian organizations have implemented DevOps broadly across their entire IT infrastructure
• 65% of Indian organizations felt the more proactive contribution of value by IT is the key driver for the adoption of DevOps

“The study highlights the fact that Indian organizations are successfully forging ahead with digital transformation to effectively compete with their peers in the application economy. Organizations across sectors have realized the benefits of digital transformation. Those organizations that don’t keep pace with this phenomenon, will lose out to the competition and may find it next to impossible to survive,” said Sunil Manglore, managing director, India, CA Technologies.

Indian organizations are expecting the benefits from their digital transformation initiatives mainly in the following areas: opening up of new markets (48%), creation of new business models (47%) and ability to act quickly on opportunities (47%). Among all the digital approaches, 47% of respondents identified mobile technology, eg. smartphones and tablets, and 43% of respondents identified web based applications, as the top two that are particularly critical with respect to customer engagement and market development.

Survey Methodology

The global online survey of 1,442 senior IT and business executives was sponsored by CA Technologies and conducted by industry analyst firm Freeform Dynamics in July, 2015. It was augmented by in-depth telephone interviews with key industry executives. A total of 615 respondents were from APJ; this covered Australia, China, Hong Kong, India, Japan, Singapore, and South Korea. For full survey methodology details, see the report “Exploiting the Software Advantage: Lessons from Digital Disrupters”.