For digital transformation, people matter most, says Wipro
To successfully navigate the waters of digital transformation, businesses must focus on leadership and personnel, according to survey conducted by Wipro Digital, the digital services and consulting arm of global IT and consulting firm Wipro.
The survey polled 1,400 C-suite leaders, including 400 based in the US, focusing not only on digital transformation, but also on barriers to its success. By managing expectations and aligning leadership, the survey revealed, organizations have the best shot at success.
As a subject, digital transformation is met with a great deal of clarity – 94% of respondents believe that their company was or is aligned on the definition of the term, with 90% believing that their company is successfully carrying out its in-place strategy to digitally transform. Regarding barriers to success, organizations were also in agreement, although not as markedly: 59% of executives, for example, named inconsistent backing from leadership as a top-five concern. Other high-ranking issues included the inability to train teams to change or use new technology (56%) and the need for better alignment with stakeholders (54%).
The Wipro survey also showed that the longer an organization has been attempting to digitally transform, the more likely it is to experience technology-related obstacles. Fourteen percent of executives with digital transformation strategies less than two years old reported technology as their biggest barrier, compared to 26% of executives with strategies in place for more than two years.
"These results show that in the past two years, enterprise leaders have ensured that their organizations are capable of delivering ROI on their digital transformation efforts," said Rajan Kohli, president of Wipro Digital, said. "Leaders must align stakeholders and help their business units adapt to and leverage new technology, methods or processes. They need to hold fast and keep their company Boards and C-suite informed and comfortable with disruption, new ways of working, and reorient their strategy as new insights and patterns are uncovered. This will help senior leadership consistently commit to the necessary sponsorship. The payoff will come. It's not too late to start a digital transformation program, but the window of opportunity is closing."
The report concludes with several takeaways for organizations seeking to digitally transform. Return on investment, or ROI, respondents said, typically takes a year to become apparent, and digital transformation as a whole is usually only modestly to moderately disruptive to business operations. The key message, however, seems to be one of timing – and intrinsic value – with 85% of respondents believing that organizations which are late to the digital transformation game still have a chance to best their competition in the long-run.
