Although enterprises in the Dominican Republic are rapidly embracing emerging technologies, their investments often fail to bring returns on investment. According to our recent Dominican Republic digital transformation survey, this gap in emerging tech adoption and ROI can be attributed to three main areas: legacy systems, operational tool sprawl, and mounting cybersecurity risks in the region. In order to unlock authentic, long-term business value, executive leadership in the Dominican Republic should prioritize data governance and address each of these issues in turn.
Legacy systems
Although Dominican enterprises are eager to modernize genAI and other digital technologies, nearly a third (31%) remain anchored in architectures that are heavily dependent on legacy systems. What's more, a large amount (41%) are stuck in a cloud-siloed state of transition, whereby some of their systems and data are on-premises and some are in the cloud. Without unified visibility, consolidation, and integration across the corporate networks, executives are unable to make informed decisions and accurately assess their enterprise's security posture. Whenever possible, Dominican execs should pivot to a unified approach.
Operational tool sprawl
According to nearly all (89%) of the IT experts we surveyed in the Dominican Republic, the rapid proliferation of AI and other emerging technologies has increased operational complexity over the last couple years.
Much of this complexity can be attributed to an extremely fragmented technology environment, where 61% of Dominican organizations are dealing with anywhere between 11 and 25 disparate tools to conduct their operations on a daily basis.
In fact, of all the nations we surveyed, the Dominican Republic ranked the highest in operational tool sprawl. The key to dealing with such sprawl is to have a unified visibility of the enterprise's infrastructure, which unfortunately most Dominican organizations do not have.
Most Dominican companies are opting for a fragmented ecosystem, focusing on purchasing a motley of top-tier, best-of-breed solutions, as opposed to a unified platform. Although many executives acknowledge that the dispersion of tools is hindering their operational efficiency, more than half of them (51%) still opt for a motley of best-in-class solutions, rather than a unified platform.
Mounting cybersecurity risks
Given the recent advances in AI, perhaps it shouldn't come as a surprise that there have been a bevy of increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks in the region. Unfortunately, a majority (64%) of Dominican respondents say their organizations endured more successful cyberattacks last year than in previous years.
Without a doubt, generative AI is creating a new frontier of risk. Although these new AI tools offer great business potential, they're also at the disposal of bad actors, which creates a bit of a paradox.
To be fair, Dominican IT experts understand this paradox well; a whopping 73% of them consider genAI tools to be high-risk, and these experts recognize that AI offers both immense potential and some equivalent dangers. It maybe goes without saying, but more than ever, it is vital that these new tools are deployed (and used) safely inside organizations.
The roadmap to achieving digital objectives should involve a unified infrastructure
From a digital strategy standpoint, Dominican executives appear to be very much aligned. In fact, the vast majority of respondents (90%) say that the various executives in their organizations have a high degree of alignment when it comes to digital objectives. That said, there is a strategic gap in the implementation. Not all IT leaders (only 37%) agree that simplifying and unifying the technology platform is a shared priority.
So, while almost everyone (90%) is aligned on the enterprise's objectives, not everyone (37%) agrees on the roadmap. In my opinion, this needs to change, and everyone should embrace a unified infrastructure and get on the same page.
Key takeaways
While executives in the Dominican Republic are quite excited about generative AI tools and other emerging technologies, there are a host of technical realities stifling innovation. A proliferation of legacy systems, widespread operational tool sprawl, and some budget constraints are making it hard to turn these new technology investments into measurable business results.
Making things more difficult, the region is experiencing mounting cybersecurity events—far more than the other nations we surveyed in Latin America. Without a doubt, this creates a tricky situation.
Executive leadership should transition from a reliance on a bunch of disconnected tools to a unified and resilient ecosystem. In my opinion, real growth depends not so much on software accumulation in and of itself, but rather on leadership's ability to simplify their architecture. Again, executives should roll out these new generative AI tools with the utmost care; in the genAI era, data governance is more important than ever.
Given the rapidly changing AI landscape, executives should also make a concerted effort to close the talent gap to account for these new technologies. And from a strategic point of view, all leadership within the organization should get on the same page. Put simply, when we talk about a Dominican road-map for long-term competitiveness, the key is employing a more unified infrastructure while also emphasizing strong data governance.
