More than one third (35%) of surveyed companies plan to reduce the number of ICT service providers in the next year, according to consulting firm EY. In almost half of the companies, key decisions on starting cooperation with an ICT service provider are made by their managers.
According to the published results of the study, modern technologies are becoming an element of strategic decisions of boards, going beyond the competences previously reserved for IT departments. Although CIO (person responsible for information technology – 60%) and CTO (person responsible for technology – 50%) still play a key role, 49% of the surveyed CEOs “have a significant influence on the choice of technology and suppliers”.
The most popular technology solution chosen by companies is analytics and AI (61%), as well as robotics and automation (58%), although they recorded a decrease (by 2 percentage points and 5 percentage points, respectively). GenAI (47%) came in third (up 4 percentage points). Compared to the previous edition of the survey, the largest increase (by 6 percentage points) was recorded by investments in 5G (33%). This phenomenon was particularly visible in the manufacturing sector, where the increase reached 17 percentage points – to 35%.
The study shows that 80% of respondents believe that analytical tools and AI should work together with IoT (development of the Internet of Things) and 5G. “This translates into specific requirements from business partners. Already 79% of entities expect information on how different, new technologies can work together to achieve synergy effects,” the authors emphasized.
However, the study found that vendors are struggling to meet these expectations. 61% of companies surveyed said they are not providing sufficient AI capabilities within their 5G and IoT solutions. A similar percentage said that business partners are not explaining how digital connectivity can be integrated with AI (62%) or edge computing (61%).
“As a result, over one third (35%) of companies plan to reduce the number of ICT service providers in the coming year. This decision is driven by the need to increase security, reduce costs and reduce the complexity of the solutions used. The manufacturing (43%) and financial (42%) sectors are particularly interested in consolidation,” it was indicated.
The report’s authors noted that implementing innovations on a large scale is still a challenge – 80% of companies indicated the need for better data management (+6 percentage points), and 68% that they are struggling to turn successful trials into full-scale implementations. Currently, 80% of GenAI projects remain in the testing phase, as are most investments in 5G (51%), IoT (53%) and augmented reality (60%). The largest percentage of implementations concerning the entire organization or selected business processes can be seen in analytics and AI (49%) and robotics and automation (37%).
The most common implementation barriers, according to the study, are complicated integration with existing systems (48 percent), budget constraints (45 percent) and technology immaturity, e.g. lack of standardization (37 percent). In addition, 60 percent of companies believed that they had too many separate solutions, which made it difficult to use them effectively.
The Reimagining Industry Futures Study 2025 was conducted in the last quarter of 2024 among 1,635 enterprises from 26 countries – including Poland – operating in 9 economic sectors.
EY provides auditing, tax, business, strategic and transaction advisory services. (PAP)
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