How effective are Digital Transformation exercises in global organisations ?

Harvard Business Review Analytics Services survey Rethinking Digital Transformation 2020 sponsored by RedHat was carried out globally on 700 plus senior executives.

The major findings from the survey were very impressive and interesting.

• 84% of these executives agreed that a combination of the right culture, revised business processes and new technology were responsible for bringing in a right digital transformation experience, 
• 70% opined that over the past two years Digital Transformation has become more important to business success, 
• 63 % said that cultural challenges were the greatest impediment to Digital Transformation, 
• 20% recognised Digital Transformation as effective in their organisations. 

The low figure of 20% is a clear reminder that even though Digital Transformation has great potential to bring in changes in organisations, it's success rates are quite low.

Key business goals of the organisation undertaking Digital Transformation were 

• revenue growth
• operational efficiency improvement
• customer retention
  

From the study we find that the key to Digital Transformation success is the fundamental organisational change brought about by 

• reimagined corporate cultures 
• business process modernisation and 
• technology upgrades
  

The 5 steps as outlines by the survey authors (from Red Fox) are as follows

1. clearly define and communicate underlying business goals
2. redouble efforts to achieve cultural change
3. develop KPIs to track cultural change
4. address business process changes and
5. identify high impact technology investments

The high impact technology areas that were identified from the survey are as follows 

• 63% - Collaborative Platforms to promote multi channel communication in organisations
• 61% - Business Process Automation
• 57% - Cloud Analytics
• 51% - Digital Automation Systems
• 50% - Artificial Intelligence technology (likely to take top spot by 2021)

Click here for the  Harvard Business Review Analytics Services survey Rethinking  Digital Transformation 2020 done on almost 700+ executives from the industry carrying out digital transformation in their respective organisations. 

George Easaw