Digital leaders: Driving pace and scale in a dynamic market, part 5 (technology)

One of the biggest challenges to becoming a digital business is transitioning from legacy processes and systems to new ways of adopting and managing modern technologies. The transition is complex, time-intensive and costly. But, it’s essential to driving the agility required to compete in a digital world.

In our blog series on digital leaders, we’ve been exploring the various areas impacted by digitalization, including the market environment, organizational structures, innovation and business models, and what digital leaders are doing in response. The series is based on our 2017 CGI Client Global Insights, which includes findings from face-to-face interviews with more than 1,300 business and IT leaders, as well as research we conducted in partnership with IDC in which more than 200 business leaders were surveyed on the topic of organizational design.

According to our findings:

• 72% of organizations say change is being slowed by technology and agility constraints
• 73% of organizations say modernizing is a top IT priority
• 67% of organizations are applying analytics to optimize the business

Leaders are combining emerging technologies to create value-add solutions

According to the CGI Client Global Insights, 72% of organizations say change is being slowed by technology and agility constraints, while 73% of organizations say modernizing is a top IT priority.

Digital leaders understand the need for modernization, along with its challenges and implications. They’re focused on figuring out the best path to modernization and are willing to make the necessary investment. The ultimate goal is to implement streamlined processes and emerging technologies that enable the organization to respond to the customer and market in an agile way, delivering results quickly.

Sixty-six percent of organizations are investing in new delivery models, and 48% are increasing their experimentation with new technology. In terms of emerging technologies, digital leaders are investigating the advantages of advanced analytics and artificial intelligence to generate more customer-centric insight, as well as automation and robotics to drive efficiencies and productivity.

They’re also investing in cloud technology, along with agile development methods, to speed up innovation and delivery. And, to keep pace with increasing cyber risks and regulatory demands, they’re pursuing more modern and robust security and compliance solutions.

Combining these emerging technologies is resulting in leading-edge business solutions. For example, digital leaders are not only implementing an omni-channel solution, but also combining it with artificial intelligence to provide a more personalized customer experience.

Shaping the business through data-driven insight

Sixty seven percent of organizations are applying analytics to optimize the business. Digital leaders (78%) not only invest in digital strategies that rely heavily on data-driven insights, but these insights are based on contextual data as well as transactional data. Digital leaders are working hard to collect contextual data (location, climate, economic mood) that can feed artificial intelligence engines to help create more informed and precise insights.

In addition, digital leaders separate their enterprise information services from their customer channel and enterprise business services, both of which undergo constant evolution. Doing so ensures that any change to channels or business services doesn’t impact the flow and analysis of information. They also work to ensure the quality and sharing of their data as a critical enterprise asset, not only internally but externally across the ecosystem.

What is your organization’s approach toward modernization? Is your organization experimenting with new technology? Is your organization focusing on a wider information strategy?

Share your thoughts in the comments or, if you would like to start a conversation, contact me. You also can visit our digital transformation section.