If Covid-19 has taught businesses something, it is that they always need to be on their toes and quickly adapt to the ever-evolving digital landscape. Otherwise, their survival and going concern will be highly doubtful. In the last three years, many businesses learned the importance of staying a step ahead of the potential digital changes the hard way. On the other hand, business leaders who were keenly aware of the constantly changing digital consumption were quick enough to incorporate the knowledge into their business operations and watched their profits soar.
The aforementioned occurrences drove the term ‘digital transformation’ into the foreground and caught the attention of industry experts and offerers of reputable digital marketing services. In simpler words, the term refers to the utilization of digital technologies to modify their existing processes and culture to better deliver their services/products. It is clear that a business’s proficiency in quickly scaling digital solutions entitles it to enjoy the perks of digital transformation.
But the question is, why are some companies able to reap the full benefits of digital transformation while others lag behind? To answer this question, Google teamed up with the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to investigate how various companies across the globe approach digital transformation.
In this blog, we shall not only critically assess the findings of this critical study but also filter out the typical attributes of thriving digital leaders that you must also strive to acquire.
Research Methodology And Assessment Of The Findings
A corporation with a strong marketing strategy and staff seeks to stay on top of the newest digital trends and progressively integrates them into its operations. However, a digital leader is a company that remains farsighted and constantly scours the Information Technology and marketing domains to seek out new and more promising ways of delivering its products and services, interacting with clients and staying abreast of the continuously changing environment.
Thus, the aforementioned study sought to distinguish these digital leaders from the stragglers by examining the digital mastership of two thousand firms globally. Surprisingly, the results revealed that only about 30% of these companies were realizing optimal value from digital transformation.
The details of the study demonstrated that companies that are able to rapidly scale digital solutions reap significant value from digital transformation. That is, a company has to be ahead of the crowd to enjoy the advantages. These companies are the digital leaders of the current era. Amazingly, these firms enjoy three times higher revenues and savings on costs compared to the rest of the laggers.
You can read the full report here.
This leads us to the second most important question of the day: What magic incantations do these companies have that help them attain these accomplishments?
To be honest, there isn’t any magical trick or shortcut. A deeper look into the same study helps us identify three essential traits or qualities that the aforementioned digital leaders possess. As a business leader, if you can weave these three attributes into your company, success in the digital world will not be a far-fetched dream.
The Three Common Attributes Of Successful Digital Leaders
The firms that were able to scale their digital solutions had the following common characteristics:
Alignment At The Top Level
The attitude and eagerness of the C-suite are ultimately mirrored throughout the organization. Thus, digital transformation should not only be considered a chief marketing or IT officer’s cup of tea. Instead, the whole C-suite must unite and collectively form a suitable roadmap or strategy. Furthermore, they must work together to implement the concept from top to bottom.
The study reveals that 72% of digital leaders regard C-suite alignment as a priority.
Utilization Of High-Quality First-Party Data
To adequately connect the digital solutions to your existing tech heap, you must scrutinize the first-party data you gain from your clients and the one already existing in the organization. However, to ensure the provision of high-quality data, you must ensure that there is adequate data governance and oversight.
The study reveals that 90% of digital leaders use APIs and other microservices to collect the data that ultimately scale their digital solutions.
Adaptive Outlook
Lastly, the research work above also shows that it is imperative that you do not consider digital transformation as a one-off process. You must have an adaptive always-on mindset and continuously seek new ways to reimagine customer experience and your existing processes.
About Reach First
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