A recent survey by PwC reveals that 35 percent of family businesses feel vulnerable to digital disruption compared to 30% globally with the majority of the enterprises (67 %) of them invested in improving digital capabilities in the next two years.
According to the report, the discrepancies between the Kenya and global respondents shows that Kenya’s family businesses feel more vulnerable to digital disruption.
“These discrepancies between Kenya and global respondents shows that Kenya’s family businesses feel more vulnerable, overall than their global counterparts but they are investing in digital capabilities — perhaps helping them to feel more confident about the changes ahead, the report stated.
It adds that most family businesses (39%,30%, and 11%) are wary of specific technological challenges; cybersecurity, digitization, and growth of AI and robotics respectively.
PwC notes that the companies ought to carefully strategize the digital transformation projects, by putting in place the right governance structure and processes, to minimize the risk involved in the implementation adding that: “If not well planned, digital transformation projects can tend to be complex and high risk.”
PwC highlights that companies are waking up to the disruptive reality of artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things, digital fabrication (3D printing) and robotics.
“Companies are deploying chatbots to provide a more responsive customer service experience. Others are adopting robotics process automation to automate manual repetitive and rule-based tasks to increase productivity, and others see AI as providing an opportunity to predict their customers’ specific needs better.”
