Although Belgian IT and business decision-makers assess their competitive position positively, they look to the future with doubts. More than half fear it will be difficult to keep up. The AI ​​hype is supposed to bring relief.

72 percent of Belgian IT decision makers believe they have a good competitive position and can choose a sound strategy. This is according to the Dell Technologies Innovation Catalyst survey, conducted among 6,600 business and IT specialists worldwide, including a hundred in Belgium.

Despite their confidence in their own strengths, Belgian respondents look to the future with a certain amount of mistrust. 52 percent are unsure about the changes that will impact their industry in the next three to five years, and 57 percent fear it will be difficult to keep up. Everyone knows that data plays an important role in tomorrow’s organization, but 30 percent find it difficult to convert the wealth of data into insights.

27 percent point to management and think that there is a lack of strategic understanding. 26 percent find that the current IT infrastructure is too outdated or too complex. All of these things slow down innovation that seems necessary.

Always AI

Of course, AI is also the focus of this research, as hype technology has become indispensable. Surprisingly, the tone among the Belgians is reserved. 63 percent fear new security and privacy issues and 64 percent believe their data and intellectual property are too valuable to be entrusted to a generative AI tool that can be accessed by third parties. Read: Almost two out of three rightly have questions about entering unique company data into ChatGPT and similar tools.

Nevertheless, Belgian respondents are not blind to the potential benefits of generative AI. 47 percent dream of cost savings, 46 percent see an improvement in the customer experience and 45 percent expect an improvement in IT security. Before these benefits can be achieved, it is important that companies get their data flows under control. Furthermore, it is noticeable that the survey’s focus is on generative AI rather than AI in general, while it is not entirely clear how well respondents can assess the impact of AI technology.

Different speeds

“As is often the case with new technologies, there are clearly big differences in knowledge and speed of adoption between different Belgian companies and organizations,” says Koen Segers, managing director of Dell Technologies in Belgium and Luxembourg. “Some organizations are still in the exploration phase, while others are already working on concrete implementations.”

He explains: “We see that many companies start with applications to increase internal productivity, while projects that have a real impact on business processes are often more complex. Here we see that many companies and organizations are still looking for guidance and support. It can certainly be said that with the emergence of GenAI, awareness and knowledge of its advantages and disadvantages has increased significantly, precisely because the areas of application of GenAI are much more diverse than ‘traditional’ AI.”