Amid a growing lull with an economic growth outlook crashing to the ground following the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, a recent UST Global study by Forrester Consulting seems to instill some hope among the technology-driven companies globally.
According to the study, digitally transformed firms have witnessed an increase in customer accounts by 11%, while digitally less mature firms saw a 2% decrease last year. The study further states that companies or organizations that have successfully transformed their operations digitally benefitted on multiple fronts – including cost savings, improved employee satisfaction, increased revenue, and better brand reputation from their transformation efforts and a slew of other benefits that align to key goals of business leaders.
The study saw the participation of more than 400 global enterprise decision-makers. The study also reveals that many enterprises are still in the initial stages of their digital transformation journey. Nearly 42% of the responding organizations are identified as beginners in the digital transformation maturity; while only 20% are advanced.
More than 80% of digitally advanced firms use cloud services for customer and employee-facing digital experiences, and more than 75% of digitally advanced organizations are training for artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) and implementing related solutions.
The study findings
70% of digital leaders are also industry leaders in terms of revenue growth.
71% of the participants were from companies with revenue of more than $1 billion.
“We believe the findings from this Forrester commissioned study reveals that organizations who advanced their digital initiatives excelled in generating customer value during the most difficult of times, demonstrating resilience in their ability to perform and transform,” said Trent Mayberry, the chief digital officer at UST.
Mayberry said that this study highlights how organizations are accelerating their digital transformation and provides recommendations for organizations that are on their path to digital maturity.
The power of digital transformation is not lost on advanced firms as they accelerate the adoption of modern technologies like cloud, automation, analytics, and AI or ML, said UST citing the findings.