Nancy White is the content marketing manager for the Corporate Brand team at PTC. A journalist turned content marketer, she has a diverse writing background—from Fortune 500 companies to community newspapers—that spans more than a decade.
In 2019, digital transformation is no longer a future state, or something to reconsider for the next fiscal year, it’s an initiative that needs to be woven into the very fabric of an organization.
The industrial enterprise has one of the most compelling stories for digital transformation (DX). To help illustrate that story, we collected some of the most captivating digital transformation statistics and explain what they mean for enterprise businesses.
7 Business Takeaways from 14 Digital Transformation Statistics
• Investment Is Increasing
The IDC estimates that 40 percent of all technology spending will go toward digital transformations, with enterprises spending in excess of $2 trillion in 2019. Disruption is happening across all industries, and investment in digital transformation is essential to stay relevant and create new opportunities.
• Executives Are Leading the Charge
Digital transformation is a top-down initiative, often led with a vision from the C-suite. CIOs and CEOs are most often reported as owning or sponsoring digital transformation initiatives – 28 percent and 23 percent, respectively.
It makes sense: Digital transformation requires change at all levels of an organization, which requires C-suite buy-in and leadership. It simply can’t be done in siloed environments.
• It’s a Competitive Necessity
A Tech Pro Research survey found that 70 percent of companies either have a digital transformation strategy in place or are working on one. For large enterprises, that number is probably higher. To complement this initiative, IT digital transformation budget increased year over year for half of the survey respondents.
There are global market trends influencing the adoption – and fast pace – of digital transformation. These include worker shortage and skills gap, risk and cost pressure, and increasing instances of digital disruption. On the other end, industrial enterprises are seeing enviable business outcomes from digital transformation efforts, such as product and service improvement and innovation, operational efficiency, and increased agility across the value chain.
• Optimism Around the Role of IoT & Artificial Intelligence (AI)
IoT and artificial intelligence are two key technologies to digital transformation, especially for the enterprise.
Six in 10 enterprise executives believe IoT technology will play an important role in their organization’s digital business strategy. Hand-in-hand with the implementation of IoT solutions is the need for artificial intelligence: it’s how organizations are able to analyze and make sense of this new data.
Research shows more than two-thirds – 68 percent – believe the future of business will involve people and AI working collaboratively. With greater visibility into the enterprise, leaders can make data-driven decisions, increase operational effectiveness, and innovate faster.
• People Are Vital to Digital Transformation
Seventy-one percent cite the workforce as either very or extremely important in supporting their digital transformation strategy.
Successful DX is not just about technology; it’s about transforming the way you do business from the ground up. You can’t do that without your workforce. Enterprises need to think about how to go beyond the C-suite, down to the workers who will be incorporating new technology and processes into their daily tasks – and think about the impact digital transformation will have on workers at every level.
• Tangible Business Benefits
In a survey of executives across verticals, the top benefits of digital transformation were improve operational efficiency (40 percent), faster time to market (36 percent), and meet changing customer expectations (35 percent).
Eighty percent of those who have implemented digital transformation technologies, like PLM, cloud, and IoT, say they are able to deliver new value for smart, connected products throughout their lifecycle. Further, 60 percent said they have created new business models as a result.
• Harness the Power of Partnerships
This statistic was surprising: less than 30 percent of an organizations’ technology vendors are currently active partners in their digital transformation initiatives. Enterprises have core competency – things that they excel at and should focus on. Identifying and fully leveraging critical partners to support initiatives outside that core competency not only accelerates transformation, but also creates new opportunities and fosters collaboration internally and externally.
Final Thoughts
Digital transformation needs to be an ongoing effort for the enterprise – when organizations become comfortable with the status quo, that’s when disruptors and other business threats can make in-roads within the market and customers.
Which side of these statistics is your company on?
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