Sector lags behind on colocation, cloud and sustainability

Financial service enterprises are at the greatest risk of losing their competitive edge if they don’t take steps to digitally transform, according to new research commissioned by Telehouse International Corporation of Europe.

The study, which polled the views of 250 UK enterprise IT decision makers, in financial services, retail, logistics, manufacturing and private healthcare, found that more than four out of ten (42%) financial service enterprises need to transform their IT infrastructure or risk becoming less competitive. This is significantly higher than the 34% average across all sectors.

Financial service organisations have the lowest percentage of IT infrastructure currently outsourced in colocation (38%) and the cloud (39%) of all sectors polled in the survey. They also have the lowest confidence in IT maturity, with just 30% of IT decision-makers describing their organisation’s IT maturity as ‘very advanced’, trailing well behind manufacturing on 58%. 

Pressure to deliver a more mature IT infrastructure is being driven by customer demands for more connected, relevant and personalised experiences (46%), the need to simplify business and operating models to increase efficiency (46%), cyber security concerns (44%) and requirement to deliver new applications and services to customers (44%).

The sector also lags behind on sustainability, with just 20% of financial services enterprises saying their sustainable IT operations are very advanced, compared to 32% in retail and private healthcare, 28% in manufacturing and 22% in logistics.

Mark Pestridge, Senior Director Customer Experience at Telehouse Europe says: “The finance sector has high security and compliance requirements, so it’s no surprise that it’s slower to transform. But regulation shouldn’t stifle innovation. In fact, many of the risks that traditional on-premise IT infrastructures present can now be mitigated through cloud computing or colocation.

“Financial service providers have a huge opportunity to provide the seamless, secure and personalised services that today’s consumers crave. But doing so will require a digital transformation, and this needs to happen fast. It will be those that can build a connected, secure, reliable, scalable, flexible, resilient and low latency IT infrastructure who will win in the long-run.”

Despite lagging behind other sectors in most areas, financial services are leading the way when it comes to edge computing. Nearly three quarters (72%) have implemented a strategy for edge computing, driven by a need to optimise data volumes (36%), digitally transform (34%) and match competitor capabilities (34%). However, many are still held back by challenges such as a lack of understanding of edge networks, uncertainty over locations and cost and connectivity.