Organisations across the globe aren't prepared for digital transformation, according to a new study from Ovum.

The study, which Ovum says is the largest of its kind with 7000 enterprise IT decision makers from 62 countries and across 15 industries taking part, found 33% of enterprises are underprepared when it comes to DX, which Ovum describes as the process of replacing legacy networks and dedicated service platforms with a coherent digital environment that is flexible, cost-effective, and capable of delivering changes rapidly and dynamically.

The research additionally revealed that while 60% believe their organisation's process of digital transformation is “well advanced” or “in progress”, only 7% believe it to be complete.

Respondents from the financial services sector demonstrated the most confidence in enabling digital transformation, with 60% of enterprise IT decision makers in this industry believing the process to be “well advanced” or “in progress”.

Of these organisations, retail banks claim to be the most advanced (45%), followed by payments, insurance and financial markets (40%). By contrast, respondents from the retail sector considered their industry the least prepared for digital transformation.

In the public sector, 38% of respondents thought their sector was experiencing some or significant disruption to services from digital technologies, only 29% thought their own organisation was affected.

“The uneven maturity of digital transformation by industry and country has created a complex landscape for sales teams to navigate, but our data plays a significant role in quantifying for our customers their target markets' investment appetite and timescales,” explains Daniel Mayo, director of IT, Data - Tools at Ovum.

“This enables them to quickly and confidently make decisions about where to focus their go-to-market and product investments.

In addition to this, the study indicated that while IT spend is growing globally, the top three regions where spend is increasing most rapidly are South Asia, Southeast Asia and Latin America, with North America, Western Europe and Australia showing the slowest increase in spend.

According to Mayo, the new study closely examined the process of digital transformation currently taking place within enterprises today, and found many are struggling with omnichannel customer/citizen engagement, predominantly focused on online/mobile channels to date.

Thirty percent of enterprises are only at the early or not-started stages, while 25% of enterprises claim to be at least well advanced in this area, the study reveals.