The High Commission for Planning (HCP) notes, in a note on the situation of the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) at the level of companies, a more favorable orientation towards digitization for services.
“Companies operating in services excluding transport and warehousing, which are more affected by the repercussions of the Covid-19 crisis, have planned to increase the shares of investment intended for innovation (development of new products) and transformation. digital (digitalization of internal and external services), to reach 40%, on average, in 2021”, indicates the same source.
The planned share for change in the organization of work has been significant, reaching a maximum of 28% for companies that provide real estate services, said the note, adding that compared to investment expectations relating to the year 2021, the achievements were contrasted according to the fluctuations that had marked the sectoral activities.
In particular, services, in particular accommodation and catering activities, financial services and telecommunications, which had prioritized the development of their digitization in 2021, would have been faced with a continued decline in their added value that began in 2020.
On the other hand, industrial companies would have returned to their pre-crisis level in 2021 and their financial situation would have improved, in particular at the level of certain export sectors which have benefited from sustained growth in their selling prices abroad.
At the same time, the HCP indicates that the use of ICTs has intensified since the start of the Covid-19 crisis in 2020, particularly at the level of public administrations which increasingly use digital platforms imposing on users of their services adapt to the digitization of their process.
For private companies, motivations for investment in ICT in the post-crisis period and digital transformation strategies are still very different depending on the branch of activity.
At the level of industrial branches, companies planned to maintain their investment policies focused on machinery equipment in 2021. Their main reason for investment was to maintain or improve their productive capacities, through the acquisition of equipment and other capital goods expected to absorb 47% of their investment budget in 2021.
The expectations of industrial companies for investments intended for the modernization of IT equipment and the digitalization of internal or external services did not exceed 3% and 4% respectively, on average, of the total investment planned for 2021.
Only the electrical and electronic industries, which were more involved in the process of integrating ICT before the start of the Covid-19 crisis, planned to strengthen their digital development, anticipating to devote 21% to it on average in 2021.
Manufacturers also did not foresee a major change in the organization of work within their companies. The planned share of the transition to new working methods (remote or work-study) in the total investment planned for 2021 was limited to 5%.
This note presents the situation of ICT integration at company level based on the results of two surveys conducted by the HCP. The first survey, conducted in 2019 among 2,101 companies operating in industry, construction, trade and non-financial market services, aimed mainly to understand the activities of companies, in their diversity, and the economic and social context in which they operate and to welcome their perceptions on the use of new technologies.
The second survey was carried out in December 2020 among 3,600 companies, in order to assess the effects of the covid-19 health crisis on their activities and to receive their assessments of the outlook for changes in activity, employment and investment in 2021.
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