NA enterprises embrace digital adoption far beyond enabling customer-facing functions.
DALLAS, September 30, 2015 — Although “digital customer interaction” is all the rage in business IT conversations today, new research from Everest Group—a consulting and research firm focused on strategic IT, business services, and sourcing—indicates that North American enterprises are applying digital technologies to solve business problems across all enterprise functions, not just sales, marketing and customer support.
“Most of the hype around digital services and solutions appears to be pivoted around the CMO suite and marketing-oriented applications; however, in reality, digital adoption is much more inclusive and pervasive in nature,” said Chirajeet Sengupta, vice president at Everest Group. “Enterprises look at an array of technologies to support and augment digital functionality across the entire scope of business processes.”
In fact, North American enterprises spend twice as much on digital technology to improve the efficiency of back-office and mid-office processes than they spend on technology that supports market-facing, front-office processes. Everest Group identifies the former as “Digital for Efficiency” or “DfE” and the latter as “Digital for Growth” or “DfG.” On average, North American enterprises spend 47 percent on DfE as opposed to 24 percent on DfG.
“So, digital transformation is not only about digital marketing or changing the business model from brick and mortar to online,” continued Sengupta. “Digital transformation also applies to global procurement and supply chains across retail, manufacturing, and oil and gas companies around the world; to professional service companies that are transforming the way they engage, hire, reward, and retain talent; and to call centers using analytics to predict staff attrition, to name just a few examples.”
These findings and more are discussed in Everest Group’s recently released report, North American Digital Adoption Survey—How Pervasive is Your Digital Strategy?
This report analyzes digital adoption among 120 North American enterprises and provides insight on their adoption maturity and allocation of digital spend. The research identifies four distinct market segments and maps their adoption behavior. It also highlights key implications for North American enterprises and service providers serving this market.
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Key findings from the report include the following:
- North American enterprises display a high degree of adoption maturity for digital services. Enabling technologies such as cyber security and infrastructure as a service (IaaS) have witnessed the most adoption. Nearly three-fourths of the enterprises have adopted core digital themes such as analytics and mobility related initiatives.
- Enterprises focus their digital investments on Digital Enablement (i.e., optimizing existing IT environments), Digital for Efficiency (DfE) and Digital for Growth (DfG).
- Based on their DfE and DfG orientations, North American enterprises are divided into four distinct segments, which differ significantly in maturity and allocation of digital spend across business imperatives.
- After an initial “honeymoon period” when enterprises start their digital journey, many experience a “digital trough” when optimism, management buy-in and budget availability dips. Among North American enterprises seeking to adopt digital meaningfully, 43 percent are currently facing these challenges.
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High-resolution graphics illustrating key takeaways from this report can be included in news coverage, with attribution to Everest Group. Graphics include:
- Digital investment strategies in North American enterprises
- Digital adoption: a definitional framework
- Digital investment imperatives: efficiency or growth?
- The digital adoption journey
- Dispelling digital myths
- Digital investments: perception versus reality
- Digital investment priorities in North American enterprises
