IT Brief Australia - Technology news for CIOs & IT decision-makers
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Getting the most out of your digital transformation journey
Tue, 18th Jun 2019
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Being a digital leader is not just about mastering one or two aspects of transformation. It's about being good at all of them. This can seem overwhelming for CTOs looking to embark on their digital journey, especially with regards to machine learning and AI.

To be successful, digital transformation requires senior level endorsement. According to surveys by Gartner and BT/Economist Intelligence Unit, a digital-first approach is a top priority for today's chief executives.

In fact, the financial repercussions of not embracing digital transformation are staggering. Digital leaders turn more profits, save more money, and acquire more customers.

They exhibit 5x revenue growth, 8x higher operating margin profit, and 2x higher returns to shareholders than laggards.

You might think that digital leaders invest much more heavily in technology, but, their technology spend is only slightly higher (3.5% of revenue) compared to digital laggards (3.2%). It's the approach to digital transformation that's important, the combination of your organization, ecosystem, technology, and data.

Most companies (68%) identify agility as one of the keys to digital transformation. Companies that are embracing cloud and edge computing are clearly pulling ahead of their competition. Rather than allowing legacy systems to hold them back, agile companies are turning to cloud offerings that let them more easily evolve along with technology and stay ahead of the curve.

However, for those falling behind the challenge of transformation is beginning to seem insurmountable. Especially when they consider that cloud is only the first step and that alone is a daunting task.

Ten years ago, management consultants would have told you that you needed all these elements to drive up the value of your business. But conventional wisdom dictated that you could only be good at one, or maybe two of these habits, at a time.

But think about your favourite digital brands today, and you'll realize that not only can you master all the elements, you must.

Leaders do this is by empowering their employees to accelerate innovation. They approach digital transformation from the C-suite and lead with cloud and edge technologies.

From their own data, they have an understanding of their customers' behaviour, and their own operations and people.

Digital leaders use their historical data while collecting data in-the-moment, then marry it all together to predict the next best course of action.

To find out more about how to get the most out of your digital transformation journey click here.