Pega study reveals business complexity continues to accelerate

A new global study from Pegasystems Inc. on the state of business complexity found that nearly three out of four employees (71%) feel their job complexity continues to rise as customer demands increase.

At the same time, employees at all levels report feeling overloaded with information, systems, and processes, making it difficult for them to adapt to these new challenges and meet their customers’ growing needs.

The survey findings from more than 4,000 employees in the Americas, EMEA, and APAC suggest these initiatives either didn’t go far enough or were implemented in silos without a unified vision. 42% of respondents think that digital transformation may have even increased their job complexity.

Survey respondents identified a mix of organizational, technological, and societal factors that are adding complexity to their jobs, including managing information overload (90%) of respondents, navigating internal processes and bureaucracy (89%), managing projects, teams, and people (88%), keeping pace with rapid change (87%), lack of resources (86%).

The survey also highlighted how the pandemic specifically contributed to the acceleration of business complexity in a number of ways:

· 56% feel the pandemic will make business more complex in the long run.

· 35% think hybrid work arrangements make business more complex. When asked why, 38% said hybrid work makes it more challenging to set boundaries between their work and personal lives.

· 32% think the pandemic makes it more difficult to find the right people to hire, while 61% say their company cannot attract talent with the necessary tech skills to do the jobs properly.

· One out of three reported their organization moves too slowly to react to change. But despite its own complexity, technology still remains the key to streamlining their job functions, as 98% agree that technology is vital to getting their jobs done right.

Tom Libretto, Chief Marketing Officer, Pega, said, “With business complexity on the rise, organizational leaders need to rethink their digital transformation strategies. Too many businesses applied quicks fixes in the early days of the pandemic that were siloed in nature and simply didn’t go far enough. Now it’s time to take a step back and implement a smarter, holistic, and unified approach – one that simplifies and streamlines workflows so employees can thrive and customers succeed. Our new survey helps businesses understand why they continue to suffer with complexity so they have the insights to reset their digital transformation agenda and better cope with change no matter where it comes from next.”