Digitalization

Essentially all senior executives express some degree of ambition to become more digital.  Over 80% have a digital initiative underway and 69% believe they must become significantly more digital to remain competitive. 

But what does this actually mean? For many executives, the word “digital” is simply a trendy way to say “invest in IT.” For others, it signals a dramatically different way to do business.  

Click the button below for digital definitions, including the terms "digitalization" versus "digitization".

44% of CEOs report that digital investments are not improving net profit. The majority of strategy leaders say that investments are too small and insufficiently transformational to capture the opportunities digital presents.

Digitalization success depends less on having the most advanced technologies and more on having the right operating systems. Business skills, incentives and operating models, have 15 times more impact on the likelihood of success in digitalization than changes in digital technologies.

Progressive IT leaders are changing these nine features of the operating model to position IT teams for digital success:

1. Organize IT on products over projects
2. Adapt how IT engages business
3. Run agile and DevOps at scale
4. Focus on customer-centric design
5. Applications building blocks
6. Smart cloud strategy at scale
7. Strategy over governance
8. Data strategy over ownership
9. Build adaptive skills and mindset

While the topic of Digital Initiatives is at the top of CEOs' agendas, organizations are falling short of achieving digital's full potential. Seventy-one percent of Strategists report their organizations have too few transformational digital investments. However, these are the kinds of digital investments organizations need in order to reach their expected returns.

Digitalization across industries is creating increased competition for hires with digital skills. As jobs evolve, companies must review their recruiting strategies in order to avoid costly talent shortages.

Recruiters are facing common barriers which are preventing them from competing for digital talent effectively. Find out how the best organizations are saving money and increasing hires through improved sourcing strategies.

Procurement organizations continue to face challenges such as poor tail spend and hard-to-capture savings. This undermines their ability to drive value. Procurement leaders know that better use of technology can help but they still fail to make the right digital investments. 

"Digital Exemplars" are the Procurement organizations who are leading the way in getting value from digital investments. 

Marketing leaders try and align their digital marketing efforts with B2B buying behavior. However, few have made changes to their mind-sets and day-to-day operations to keep up with customers who use digital channels at every stage of the purchase journey.

Leading marketers have constructed a fully integrated digital marketing “system” based on customers’ digital buying behavior. The best way to accelerate digital proficiency is to understand how customers use online information, and focus Marketing’s efforts on the highest-potential initiatives. 

Brian Kropp

Practice Leader, HR

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Martha Mathers

Practice Leader, Marketing

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Andrew Horne

Practice Leader, IT

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