Understanding Digital Mastery Today: Why Companies Are Struggling With Their Digital Transformations

Digital Leadership

Despite making progress on evolving their customer experience, most organizations lack the digital and leadership capabilities to make digital transformation a success

New research from Capgemini’s Digital Transformation Institute highlights that the minority of businesses feel they have the digital (39%) and leadership (35%) capabilities needed to make their digital transformation journey a success.

The report, “Understanding Digital Mastery Today: Why companies are struggling with their digital transformations” reveals that while companies are making progress on evolving their customer experience, they are struggling to transform their back-end operations.

Furthermore, businesses are failing to create a strong digital culture needed to bring their employees into their digital transformation agendas.   

The report, which surveyed more than 1,300 business leaders in over 750 organizations with the majority (71%) reporting revenues of over $1 billion, compares digital transformation progress against Capgemini Consulting and MIT Sloan’s 2012 report, “The Digital Advantage: How Digital Peers Outperform Their Peers in Every Industry”.

The new research shows that despite huge investments in digital transformation initiatives, set to exceed $2 trillion by 2021, organizations today feel less equipped with the right leadership capabilities than they were six years ago (45% in 2012 compared to 35% in 2018), while less than half still feel they have the right digital capabilities to advance their transformations (39% in both 2012 and 2018.)

Report Highlights

• Organizations make headway on customer experience, but excellence in operations is still lacking
• IT and business relationships show a decline
• Low digital culture stalls progress
• How to sustain digital transformation journeys

According to Cyril Garcia, Head of Digital Services at Capgemini;

“Today’s technology landscape is much more complex than in 2012. New technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, automation and the Internet of Things are providing businesses with opportunities they have never had before, but critical to their success is the ability to adapt and embed these technologies into their organizations. To take full advantage of the new technology landscape, it’s vital that business leaders not only invest in new technology but work together with their employees to advance the digital transformation agenda, putting just as much emphasis on change management as they do in an understanding of the technology.”