The 2021 Mid-cap Companies Digital Transformation report

The 2021 Mid-cap Companies Digital Transformation carried out by EY and APAX Partners, in collaboration with the METI (mid-cap companies movement) and under the patronnage of Gilles Babinet focuses on the perception and stage of mid-cap companies' digital transformation.

The first notable trend underlined by this year's barometer is the slow down of digital investments of surveyed companies. Indeed, from 88% in 2018, the percentage of business planning on accelerating their digital investments dropped at 65% in 2021. This figure should nevertheless be balanced by the fact that more than three quarters of the 150 inteviewed business leaders affirmed having actively engaged in digital transformation.

Addingly, the lucidity of the mid-cap companies leadership regarding the maturity of their transformation translated in the fact that only 14% of them considered it acheived, 14 points below the 2020 score. This can be seen positively as the understanding of such a transition's compexity, reaching far beyond the mere digitalization of traditional processes.

The third teaching to be drawn from this study is the broad involvment of the companies stakeholders. Out of the mid-cap companies interviewed collaborators, more than 80% considered digital transformation fundamental. However, only half of them declared having heard of digital transformation in the past three years.

Another significant change of this year's barometer is the priority given to the different aspects of the digital transformation. The first line of progress is the dematerialization of human ressources or communication tools, forced upon companies by the different lockdowns.

An even stronger topic is cybersecurity. According to METI's Florence Naillat, this awareness has been fueled by the mediatization of several attacks during the last months. This new top priority has been promoted at the expenses of other fields such as costumer centricity, which could have long term negative impacts on the firms.

The maturity of mid-cap companies leadership's sensibility regarding digitalization translates in their long-term decisions such as their recruitment policy. Indeed, job offers in the digital field have skyrocketed in the last months, to the point of positions remaining vacant, due to the lack of candidates.

Another inexorable trend still need senbilization is the awareness of the artifical intelligence revolution. Today, it is on the radar of too few leaders and is not considered to be a credible factor disrupting business models. For the most part, business leaders are sticking to a wait-and-see attitude.

To conclude, the underlying trend of digital awareness and transformation is rather encouraging. Nonetheless, the gap between mid-cap companies and CAC40 ones remains tangible. When larger companies can count on internal ressources to engage in digital transformations, smaller companies rely on their branch's actors (federations or partnerships) to bear the cost of such investments, largely justifying this gap.