Insight
Now every business is a digital business.
Digital disruption is changing the world in which we live and work. New technologies have created new markets that, in turn, create new customers and new competitors. And those customers and competitors are driving new expectations. The pace of change is unlikely to slow any time soon.
To succeed in the digital world, businesses must not only provide superior experiences for consumers, customers, employees and citizens, but deliver on their promises in a faster, more nimble way. The opportunities are immense, but only for organizations that understand how far and fast they need to transform.
A recent survey by KPMGi reveals that a key strategic priority for CEOs is digitizing their businesses, but that 57 percent are concerned that their organizations do not have the sensory capabilities and innovative processes to respond to rapid disruption. There is a mismatch between aspirations to ‘go digital’ and capability to do it in a strategically coherent way.
Digital transformation is enabled by technology, but its success is about much more. It means taking on enterprise-wide change to evolve an organization’s business and operating models, as well as the way its people work – across the front, middle and back offices. And it means integrating high volumes of data to predict, influence and respond to customer behavior. All with the objective of assuring clear business outcomes.
According to KPMG’s US CEO Outlook 2017, business leaders now see significant opportunity in digital disruption. 72 percent say rather than waiting to be disrupted by competitors, their organizations are actively disrupting their own sectors. At the same time, many are aware they are not yet utilizing digital to its full potential. Over a third say the depth of their customer insight is hindered by a lack of quality customer data and 45 percent say they are not leveraging digital as a means to connect to their customers effectively.
Digital transformation is business transformation
Digital transformation is a natural progression from traditional business transformation, one more suited to the modern world. The critical difference is the opportunities for innovation, scalability and agility that are possible in any transformation process, now that digital is part of the mix. Rather than setting long-term goals and moving steadily towards them, sometimes over a number of years, digital transformation has the ability to deal with uncertainty and respond quickly to change. What’s more, digital transformation is not a one-off program.
Once it has begun, it opens up an organization to continuous and much more effective evolution.
The challenges ahead can seem overwhelming but now that digital is part of the mix, the transformation process can be far more innovative, fast, scalable and agile. And we believe it should be approached incrementally to ensure a continuous and effective evolution.
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