Nearly 73% of enterprises say that their journey to enterprise-grade digital transformation is either ‘in progress’ or better, as per the 2019 Digital Means Business Benchmarking Report by NTT.
NTT surveyed over 1150 executives across 15 countries and 11 industries, and more than half of them were C-level executives. The research finds that there is an improvement in the progress and realization of value against the digital transformation mandate.
Enterprises have started to witness the positive outputs of their digital transformation efforts, even when some of them aren’t yet clear on how to fully transform themselves digitally.
Key findings of 2019 Digital Means Business Benchmarking Report
Following are the key findings of the NTT’s research for the business decision-makers:
1. 71% of early-stage transformers feel the need for large-scale transformation
Many enterprises reported that they couldn’t exactly predict the impact that digital transformation will have on their organizations. With the progress, many CIOs said that they are experiencing some of their digital efforts seeking success.
Over 40% of CIOs reported that their digital transformation journeys are well-advanced and complete. Whereas, over 71% of enterprises in the early stages of digital transformation still feel the requirement of a complete restructuring of the businesses and operating model.
The early-stage transformers have also increased their digital transformation efforts by 24.7%, as compared to last year.
2. Digital transformation requires a careful balance of tensions, both internally and externally
Along with keeping themselves updated about the things happening externally, the enterprises also need to focus on internal initiatives. This will help CIOs to make sure that their focus on the right projects, which will eventually make the execution more effective.
More and more enterprises are now defining digital as addressing internal requirements—digitizing core processes (72.5%), restructuring business operating model (72.3%), and changing organizational structures to enable different ways of working (59.6%).
32.3% of the respondents said that their outcomes from digital strategy were focused on external initiatives. On the other hand, 67.7% of them are internally focused.
3. 40% of enterprises are now in advanced stages of their journey
Over 40% of respondents said that their organizations are in the well-advanced or complete stages of their digital transformation journey.
These stats show that the enterprises have started to understand the digital beyond the concepts and theories. The maturity is gained through value and results achieved through integrated education.
4. Around half of organizations satisfied with leadership team
48.8% of respondents said that they are satisfied with the ability and skills of their leadership team to manage and execute the digital transformation strategy.
47.7% of respondents said that the way leadership influences the organization is hampering digital transformation. 22.3% of them reported a lack of executive sponsorship or ownership, 25.6% reported lack of appropriate business or digital strategy in the leadership team.
Related read: Majority of CIOs concerned about ‘Pace of change’ in business landscape: Gartner
The leadership teams said that there is a need for middle management teams to be more willing to adopt the change. The employees also have to improve their knowledge and ability to respond to changes.
5. Majority of organizations appointing Chief Digital Officer (CDO) as custodian for digital transformation
Over 82% of enterprises have appointed a CDO as the custodian for digital transformation. This role was earlier owned by the IT leaders.
42.3% of them believe that the introduction of a CDO is facilitating sincere and more constructive engagement between the business and IT. This is eventually enabling more valuable and sustainable IT delivery.
Chief Digital Officers can help in making the business and IT gain meaningful traction in overcoming the past challenges and create new paths at all stages of digital transformation.
6. Only half of CIOs satisfied with skill sets of middle management and employees
When it comes to embracing the digital opportunity, it needs to be organization-wide. But only 50.5% of leaders are satisfied or highly satisfied that their employees and middle management have the right skills to adopt digital transformation.
“A lack of acceptance for the need to change and failure to understand and appropriately implement change practices are all too often causing organizations to be their own worst enemies,” says the report.
Also read: Eighty-five percent of enterprises already in phase of IoT adoption: Microsoft report
The full “2019 Digital Means Business Benchmarking Report” by NTT is available here for download.
Images source: NTT
