Top digital transformation trends and challenges of 2024 (And how to tackle them in 2025)
As we step out of a tumultuous 2024 and into whatever 2025 has in store, one thing seems to be guaranteed: the landscape of digital transformation continues to evolve at an unprecedented pace.
Organisations across every sector are embracing new technologies and strategies to stay competitive. Alongside the opportunities brought by these advances come significant challenges.
In this blog, we hear from 9Yards consultants who share the top digital transformation trends they encountered in 2024, along with some of the challenges these trends bring with them, and actionable insights on how to strategically address these challenges as we look ahead to 2025.
Trend and challenge: the adoption and integration of AI into businesses
It’s no surprise that a number of 9Yards consultants identified AI as a trend that’s had significant impact across sectors in Australian businesses. Not all businesses are AI-ready and many are struggling with how to adopt AI and how to identify and reap the benefits.
“While it has been around for a while, 2024 saw AI become mainstream with end users now readily applying the technology to their daily lives. Once again organisations are seeing consumer level technologies set the standard for how end users expect corporate technology to work.” –9Yards Senior Consultant Jodie Rugless
“The most impactful trend for 2024 has to be the adoption of Generative AI solutions. Across the business various teams are actively searching out vendors and others to understand how they can get improvements to their productivity and get more out of their teams.” –9Yards Senior Consultant Alex Crommelin
The challenges of AI: data management and benefit realisation
Demonstrating the benefits of AI
Translating consumer grade AI to enterprise service offerings in a secure, reliable and trusted way will be the challenge for 2025. At 9Yards, we’re also seeing that the hype around AI has driven demand so the pace of adoption is ever increasing.
A challenge for IT Managers and CIOs, says Crommelin, is to “be able to articulate what the AI tools can do for teams and being able to demonstrate how they will drive productivity or improve service delivery.”
There’s also an inherent challenge in this AI “boom” to find ways to effectively manage and govern its adoption and integration.
To meet this challenge, we’re seeing the development of advanced IDEs (integrated development environments) and tooling.
Data as an asset is crucial component of successful AI adoption
Related to the adoption of AI, organisations are increasingly accepting that data is an asset. 9Yards teams saw an increase in organisations’ awareness of the need to gather, manage, govern and protect data.
“Data, data, data, especially in the context of generative AI / and large language models (LLMs). Clients are wanting to make use of AI tools like MS Copilot for operational efficiencies, as well as capturing data to prepare for the next wave of AI innovation.” —9Yards Senior Consultant Paul Yeardley
Alex Crommelin notes: “The hunger to adopt GenAI tools has also created the most common challenges. Governance and technology delivery processes have to be flexible enough to respond rapidly and avoid ‘getting in the way of progress. At the same time, data management, quality and data governance are key to delivering AI’s promised benefits awhile avoiding a proliferation of ungoverned solutions.”
9Yards Senior Consultant Tatiana Konnova agrees: “Many organisations are still struggling to identify realistic use cases to apply AI to make a true difference to their business. The importance of getting “the house in order” in terms of Data Governance in the era of AI is being recognised, but many organisations still look to solve traditional issues of vendor support and migration to the cloud first, before they can invest their efforts into the AI topic in earnest.”
In short, some of the key challenges for organisations adopting AI continue to be around information and data governance in the guise of data quality and master data management so that AI outputs are accurate and not misleading or biased.
Trend: adoption of low code / no code platforms to replace legacy systems
A new era of low code / no code legacy system replacements sees the user experience layer replaced while maintaining the proven core.
9Yards consultants agree that the change is a welcome one as it makes major legacy system replacements less risky, faster and more cost effective.
“A major emerging trend occurring in Australia in 2024 was the increased adoption of low code application platforms (LCAP). Gone are the days of high risk replacements of bespoke legacy technologies,” –9Yards Senior Consultant Jodie Rugless
“Next-generation software development and low-code platforms are becoming integral to organisations, enabling them to modernise their technology stacks at scale efficiently.” –9Yards Principal Consultant and Director, Shannon Slater
Challenge: regulatory changes
Regulatory changes often come with advance notice, but the impact is no less significant. While regulations can protect consumers, the requirements can be a challenge for businesses needing to demonstrate compliance. In the financial sector, sensitive data is used across all areas of the organisation, and all parts of the business can be exposed to operational risk. Regulatory change can impact every sector and many organisation types, including higher education providers.
“For the higher education client that I have been working with in the last 6 months, changes in government policy had quite a dramatic effect. So, having a good understanding of the current state of business capabilities and an ability to effectively adapt to external and internal forces have become a priority.” –Tatiana Konnova
Konnova notes that the best way for an organisation to equip themselves in the face of regulatory changes is to invest in strategy. Her advice: “Have a good plan for an enterprise architecture coupled with a strong change delivery and adoption capability.”
“It’s an area where 9Yards can help organisations excel putting organisations in a better position to be able to respond and adapt when significant changes occur.”
Continuing trend: increasing threats in a rapidly evolving cyber threat landscape
Both an ongoing trend and a challenge, organisations continue to need robust security measures to combat the increasing threats in a rapidly evolving landscape. This is particularly true now, with the rise of AI and the imperative to protect sensitive data.
Unchanged: people continue to matter
Despite these technological advancements, Shannon Slater notes that the focus on people remains unchanged.
“We’re seeing that successful adoption of new tech solutions continues to rely heavily on organisational change processes, underscoring the importance of human-centric approaches in technology integration.”
A challenge of our times: of economic and political uncertainty
We can’t ignore the economic and political climate that we do business in, and it’s been an unsettled year on that front. Inevitably it’s had an impact on organisations across every sector.
“As you’d expect, we are seeing more organisations navigating the challenge of balancing growth ambitions with caution amid economic and political uncertainty,” –9Yards CEO Shane Jones
Inflation, rising interest rates, and cost-of-living pressures have slowed decision-making and delayed key projects. This has driven a need for more flexible resource planning and project scheduling.
At 9Yards, we continue to embrace emerging and ongoing trends as opportunities to deliver innovative, scalable solutions that meet immediate needs while supporting future growth. Our adaptability ensures we continue adding value as clients refine their priorities.
