IT leaders say tech investments not fully utilised: report

Celonis, a company that specialises in process mining and process intelligence, has published research revealing that a significant number of senior IT leaders feel they are not fully utilising their technology investments.

The Celonis 2025 Process Optimisation Report surveyed 411 senior IT leaders from around the world, uncovering that 75% of these leaders believe their current tech investments are not achieving their full potential. Furthermore, 87% expressed a need for a better understanding of how technology is used across their organisations, which is crucial for making informed investment decisions.

The report highlights that growing complexity in technology stacks, inferior data quality, and hard-to-upgrade legacy systems are notable hurdles hindering technological innovation. These issues are particularly pressing during major transformation projects, such as migrating to SAP S/4HANA or Oracle Fusion.

"These transformations should in themselves enable innovation, adaptability, and flexibility. But they can cause widespread disruption and take time to deliver ROI when organisations don't fully understand the state of their processes from the outset," said Pascal Coubard, APAC Lead for Celonis.

The data gathered in the report comes from surveys of 1,620 business leaders globally, with a participant base that includes 10% from Australia and 25% from the Asia-Pacific region. Participating companies were required to have a minimum revenue of USD $500 million, and 80% of the surveyed companies reported revenues in the USD $2 billion to USD $10 billion range.

Celonis, which has a market share exceeding 50% according to Gartner, collaborates with one-third of the Fortune 500 companies and holds a valuation of USD $13 billion, making it one of Europe's most valuable privately owned firms. AI implementation, automation, and analytics are high on the agenda for 44% of IT leaders surveyed, outpacing other strategic projects over the next two years.

A convincing 87% of IT leaders stated they have a clear understanding of how AI can add value to their teams, and 75% plan to increase their AI budgets within the next year. Moreover, 73% expect to have concrete use cases for AI. Currently, more than 82% of companies are using GenAI foundational models for various purposes, including developer productivity and customer service.

The survey also covered concerns IT leaders have about security, data breaches, skills gaps, and the challenges of demonstrating ROI. According to Mr Coubard, "Almost every leader surveyed (99%) said they were using AI. And the vast majority (90%) say it is crucial AI has the context of how their business runs – including how they calculate KPIs, what their policies and procedures are, and how their organisation is structured – to be effectively deployed."

"And 61% say they're concerned the current state of processes in their organisation may stop them from making the most of their AI investments. We see this all the time when we start working with companies," he added.

The report highlights several obstacles that impede the in-depth process understanding necessary for successful AI deployment, identifying key issues like poor data quality, reliance on outdated technology, lack of system integration, and complexity in tech stacks.

Mr Coubard also emphasized the role of advanced tools like process mining in confronting these challenges, stating, "Advanced process visibility tools such as process mining can help organisations with streamlining and optimisation. This is backed up by the survey with 90% of IT leaders say process mining could be used to optimise specialist solutions, consequently unlocking more value in their business. More than one-third (36%) are already using process mining and a further 55% plan to use it in the next 12 months."

He went on to say, "The insights generated by process mining can be combined with AI and standardised process knowledge to deliver process intelligence, which IT teams can use to optimise their departmental processes, the wider business's processes, and their tech stacks."

Regarding current tech stacks, 75% of the surveyed IT leaders reported that these are not utilised to their full potential, with only 25% describing their systems as fully connected and seamless.