Business leaders worldwide believe the success of their enterprise depends on successfully deploying intelligent automation (IA) during the next five years, according to a report from Avanade. However, while the majority of business leaders recognize the growing importance of investing in IA, many companies have not done so because of the difficulty recruiting or training IA-skilled employees, as well as increased cyber-security threats and difficulty integrating IA into legacy systems. Furthermore, companies face resistance from employees, and leadership is divided on whether IA would augment their workforce or replace a portion of it. Less than half of respondents believe integrating IA would enable workers to do their jobs better. Of all industries, IA’s greatest impact would be felt by the financial services industry, manufacturing and aerospace. The study, which was conducted for digital services company Avanade by Wakefield Research, surveyed 400 C-level executives and 400 IT decision-makers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Italy, Germany, Japan and Sweden between May and June of this year. During the same interval, about 3,000 adults in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany also participated in the survey.