Given all the media and analyst coverage about digital transformation these days, one can be forgiven for assuming their company is limping hopelessly behind the pack. However, it’s not too late to catch up, and as you do, it can be done in incremental spurts. Plus, even the digital dynamos are still confused and grappling with the right way to do things.
That’s the finding from a survey of 1,400 executives by Wipro, which follows up a 2017 survey that shows more enterprises are finding success with digital transformation, but challenges related to leadership and adapting to new ways of working are likely points of failure in the early stages.
Late adopters may still catch their competitors, the survey shows. Overall, the majority of respondents, 87 percent, believe that companies who have started their digital transformation journey later than others still have a chance to beat the competition – 22 percent say “yes, definitely,” and 65 percent say “yes, probably.”
The goals of digital transformation don’t have to be monumental and earth-shaking, either. The majority of companies have modest and incremental (34 percent) or moderate and extended (39 percent), ambitions for their digital transformations. Only 19 percent say their efforts are leading to something “disruptive and fundamentally new.”
There isn’t a single, clear-cut approach to digital transformation either. “Digital transformation” is not one program, but many, the survey shows. Companies have averaged eight digital transformation projects during the past five years. Reasons for digital transformation are all over the map as well. One in five, 21 percent, cite revenue growth as their top motivator when deciding to begin a digital transformation. Another 14 percent cite increased agility as their primary reason, and 14 percent are looking to accelerate their speed to market.
The study found that digital transformations can seem overwhelming at first to organizations, with personnel issues as the biggest barriers. The report found that the longer a company has been undergoing a transformation journey, the less likely it is to experience people-related issues as a barrier to success whereas technology may become a bigger barrier. Fourteen percent of executives with journeys less than two years cite technology as the biggest barrier, compared to 26 percent of executives whose journey has lasted two or more years.
ROI takes about a year: Only 14 percent saw measurable business results of digital transformation in less than six months, 31 percent saw it within six to twelve months, and 54 percent said it was one to three years. Only one percent said it took longer than that.
