Survey shows majority of Saudi CEOs optimistic over tech disruption

Business leaders in Saudi Arabia view technological disruption as an “opportunity rather than a threat” with plans to continue investing in emerging technologies, such as blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT) and data analytics over the next three years, KPMG Al Fozan & Partners said in a report.

"CEOs views on disruptive technologies continue to gain more prominence, increasing from 95 percent in 2017 to 100 percent in 2018, which reconfirms their belief that technological disruption is an opportunity to grow their business rather than a threat," said Dr Samer Abdallah, head of digital, KPMG in Saudi Arabia.

More than 60 percent of CEOs believe in four key action items that they intend to undertake — selling online, joining technology related industry consortia, partnering with cloud technology providers and increasing investments in disruption detection and innovation processes.

Additionally, the survey results showed that 58 percent of the CEOs in Saudi Arabia are taking personal ownership of digital transformation to provide customized customer experiences.

More than half the CEOs (52 percent) said they are actively disrupting the sector in which they operate rather than waiting to be disrupted by competitors. The majority of the CEOs in Saudi Arabia (58 percent) are prepared to lead their organization through a radical transformation of their business and operating model.

Meanwhile, more than 90 percent of the CEOs expect a significant return on investment from artificial intelligence and robotics process automation, although only in the long run, within the next five years. Ninety-six percent of CEOs are already either piloting of implementing artificial intelligence (AI) in a small number of processes, mostly for the automation purpose, it added.

Along with agility, CEOs in Saudi Arabia (8 out of 10) also rely more on their experiences and intuition rather than data analysis or computer-driven models, while making strategic decisions.

“Easy access to business model enablers such as Cloud Computing has led to emerging technologies becoming disruptive on a large scale. Hence, it is imperative that CEOs adopt emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing, advanced robotics, IoT and augmented reality, quickly as they become foundational tools for businesses,” said Dr Abdallah.