Some starters are proactively catching up with the other clusters. Over the last 5 years Starters increased their mobile broadband adoption by over 2.5X with several countries having close to 100% coverage. The mobile broadband affordability as measured by the cost of mobile broadband divided by GNI per capita have also dropped by 25% (more affordable). These increased internet access have opened up new economic opportunities causing e-Commerce spending to almost double since 2014 to 2019. Some Starters were moving up the GCI cluster, increased their GCI scores by up to 17%, and managed to raise GDP to a level that was 22% higher than some peers. Vietnam and Peru have both become Adopter economies in 2020.

Research shows that the willingness of companies to invest in IT varies depending on where they are based. Organizations in Frontrunner and Adopter nations are prioritizing maintaining their IT budgets over non-IT budgets. They have also cut their IT budgets by 2.5 to 3.5 times less than organizations in other countries on average. Nations with more mature digital infrastructure are better positioned to minimize the economic impact of the pandemic, recover faster, and ensure the continuity of their transformation into higher-order productivity models.

Organizations in economies with higher GCI scores are able to react faster to the COVID-19 pandemic and use digital tools and services to mitigate the impact of lockdowns and social distancing. Dueto the availability of high-speed broadband, cloud services, AI, and IoT solutions, they can quickly implement distributed workforce models, migrate to e-commerce platforms, and digitally transform their operations to maintain business continuity. The forecast decline in their GDP per capita is about 50% lower than for emerging GCI economies.