NEW YORK, Aug. 30, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Nearly two-thirds
(64 percent) of companies predict significant impact from digital
technology in two years compared to only 21 percent that see major
results today; yet various organizational, cultural, and
operational barriers must be overcome to achieve future positive
business outcomes.
The new global study from Harvard Business Review Analytic
Services in association with the Genpact Research Institute
underscores that despite the promise, significant barriers remain
to achieve digital transformation across the enterprise. This
research demonstrates that even with financial investments, as well
as the necessary technology talent and skills in place, much still
stands in the way of achieving significant impact from digital:
- The inability to experiment quickly represents the biggest
barrier with nearly half of respondents (48 percent) identifying it
as a significant challenge.
- Change management and risk aversion are also high hurdles,
cited by 41 percent and 38 percent, respectively.
- Certain oft-noted operational challenges to transformation
remain, such as legacy systems (cited by 39 percent) and persistent
departmental silos (38 percent).
Most respondents did not see budgets, technology skills, or
cybersecurity as major barriers. The study underscores how
companies must confront the "softer," more people-focused cultural
issues head on to achieve digital's potential.
"While there is overwhelming optimism about digital's near
future impact, only a minority of companies are successfully
harnessing it to grow and beat the competition," said
Alex Clemente, managing director,
Harvard Business Review Analytic Services. "The research shows
that enterprises need a coherent strategy, and must address the
customer-centric and change management skills needed to overcome
the significant barriers they face if they expect to realize
digital's potential in just two years' time. Leaders are more
likely to embrace the skills for enterprise success."
Leaders' success prove promise of digital is real
The
research examines what differentiates the leaders (the 21 percent
of respondents who say that their organization is achieving
significant business outcomes from digital), from the laggards (the
21 percent that see only a limited impact). Leaders excel in
several key areas:
- Leaders are three times more likely than laggards to be
considerably ahead of the competition in terms of market
position.
- The majority (62 percent) of leaders say digital has been a
major driver of their ability to outperform competitors, compared
to only 4 percent of the laggards.
- Leaders are seven times more likely than laggards to say
digital has increased revenue.
- While only 17 percent of all respondents say their
organization's middle and back office functions and systems
effectively support customer experience expectations (i.e., the
front office), leaders have significantly higher (42 percent)
support from their middle and back office.
Taken together, these findings imply that aligning end-to-end
front, middle, and back office operations has a direct relationship
to the effectiveness of digital transformation, as well as a
company's overall performance and market success.
Softer skills more important than tech knowledge; digital
vision's implementation not clear
The study also examines
the skills necessary for companies to harness the power of digital
technology effectively. The top three are the ability to adapt to
change (cited by 31 percent of respondents), customer-focused
problem solving (27 percent), and communication and collaboration
(18 percent). Technical knowledge ranks near the bottom (8 percent)
as does understanding of analytical methods (4 percent).
Just half of all respondents say their companies have an
enterprise-wide digital strategy, and most note strong
fragmentation over its implementation. Leaders are much more likely
to have a digital strategy (77 percent), yet fare no better than
other companies in determining clear responsibility for the vision;
a variety of roles are responsible:
- Half of all respondents (52 percent) say their chief
information/technology officer has responsibility for creating
their company's digital vision; 39 percent cite chief executives;
22 percent state business unit leaders.
- Despite the rising popularity of the chief digital officer
(CDO) as a corporate function, CDOs fare no better than chief
operating officers and chief marketing officers in having
responsibility for the digital vision, with each cited at only 16
percent.
"It is not about technology skills alone," said Gianni Giacomelli, senior vice president and
head of the Genpact Research Institute. "Companies must create
a superior experience by reimagining the flow of work from the
customer engagement layer, all the way to the back office. The
front end is just the tip of the iceberg. Our study shows that
digital leaders clearly excel in this end-to-end operational and
process alignment."
About the Study
Conducted in the second quarter of
2016, Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, in association
with the Genpact Research Institute, surveyed 682 respondents
representing companies of more than 1,000 employees across multiple
sectors, business functions, and regions around the world, with a
prevalence of U.S. and European firms. More than half (51 percent)
of organizations had revenue of $5
billion or more, and 68 percent of respondents work in
companies of 10,000 or more employees. See
http://www.genpact.com/lp/accelerating-the-pace-and-impact-of-digital-transformation
to access the report.
About the Genpact Research Institute
The Genpact
Research Institute is a specialized think tank harnessing the
collective intelligence of Genpact – as the leading business
process services provider worldwide – its ecosystem of clients and
partners, and thousands of process operations experts. The
Institute examines new trends that influence the evolution of
strategically important operating models, helping our client's
business. The Institute combines Genpact's deep expertise in
process management, analytics, and technology with the insights of
our research partners and clients. Projects are led by leaders and
subject matter experts from Genpact's offices around the world.
These teams also draw on a global network of external partners and
industry experts, and benefit from our extensive connection with
hundreds of large clients globally. For more information, see
http://www.genpact.com/home/about-us/research-institute.
About Genpact
Genpact (NYSE: G) stands for
"generating business impact." We are a global leader in
digitally-powered business process management and services. We
architect the Lean DigitalSM enterprise through
our patented Smart Enterprise Processes (SEPSM)
framework that reimagines our clients' operating models end-to-end,
including the middle and back offices. This creates Intelligent
OperationsSM that we help design, transform, and run.
The impact on our clients is a high return on transformation
investments through growth, efficiency, and business agility.
For two decades, first as a General Electric
division and later as an independent company, we have been
passionately serving our clients. Today, we generate impact for a
few hundred strategic clients, including approximately one-fifth of
the Fortune Global 500, and have grown to over 75,000 people in 25
countries, with key offices in New York
City. The resulting business process and industry domain
expertise and experience running complex operations are a unique
heritage and focus that help us drive the best choices across
technology, analytics, and organizational design. For additional
information, visit www.genpact.com. Follow Genpact on Twitter,
Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
For more information:
Danielle
D'Angelo
(Genpact Media
Relations)
danielle.dangele@genpact.com
+1
914-336-7951
|
Abby
Trexler
(for
Genpact)
atrexler@peppercomm.com
+1
212-931-6179
|
|
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