Digital Transformation is already a big focus for enterprises and will become essential over the coming years. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, 77% of businesses state that digital transformation is their first strategic priority. But does this translate into real results for most businesses today?
Transformation for Survival
In the past ten years, digital disruption has transformed the business landscape. The internet, Cloud and mobile devices completely changed how we live and work. Companies need to develop an agility advantage that allows them to embrace market and operational changes as a matter of routine. 70% of the companies that were on the Fortune 1000 list 10 years ago have now vanished due to their inability or unwillingness to adapt to change.
While many organizations see digital transformation as a one-off project, it should actually be seen as a change in operations to allow consistent innovation. This gives the business the tools to adapt to future changes and continue to grow.
The Digital Transformation Challenge
The successful delivery and implementation of these complex digital transformation programs is critical. Firstly, because changes must be implemented on time and secondly because they touch so much of the critical IT estate that it’s crucial there are no incidents in live operations which could affect customers. Incidents that affect customers can be very damaging to a company’s reputation and are often heavily reported in the press.
As more and more companies take on digital transformations, they must therefore understand the risks as well as the rewards and ensure they have robust delivery, implementation and resilience to deal with these large-scale changes.
Digital Transformation So Far
As of last year, at least half of all businesses had begun a digital transformation project and 55% of those that hadn’t planned to adopt one within a year or less. However, while 90% of CEOs believe that enterprise-wide digital transformation is the goal of their digital strategy, less than 15% of early maturity digital enterprises actually have a clearly defined digital strategy.
There’s still a long way to go for the actual execution of digital transformations to achieve enterprise agility. However, with so many companies identifying it as one of their most important initiatives, it will massively shape business in the coming years. In fact, Gartner estimates that by 2020, about 1/4 of the GDP worldwide will come from digital activities.
The future looks bright for digital transformation, but what have been the real impacts of transformation on businesses so far?
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