Under 50% of businesses in Greece currently have a clear digital transformation strategy. At the same time, only 3 out of 10 plan to invest more than 150,000 euros in such actions in the next three years. In addition, 4 out of 10 businesses appear to be looking for funding from programs such as the NSRF (Enterprise Agreement for the Development Framework) and the Recovery Fund, according to a survey conducted by Grant Thornton in a sample of 400 businesses, of which 240 are in Northern Greece.

The survey was presented in Thessaloniki by Christos Vargiemezis, company’s partner. Cybersecurity ranks first in the priorities of those with a digital transformation strategy, closely followed by a data exploitation strategy.

More than seven in ten companies use data analytics and cloud services, while robotics and automation are identified by almost 70% of participants as an opportunity to increase productivity. 66% of respondents see robotics and automation as an opportunity for better utilization of human resources and better internal organisation, but a smaller but not insignificant proportion, 23%, see it as a threat leading to job cuts.

In the critical area of cybersecurity, although 76% of companies have a defined cybersecurity strategy, 24% do not currently have a specific policy in place, while almost 23% fail to encrypt sensitive data and 22% do not have crisis response plans in place. Despite this, 50% offer regular relevant training every six months to employees, while only 15% have not undertaken any relevant training