How Digital Technologies will help Organizations in hunting new accounts?

CIOs have spent the past decade tending to IT operations in a world of tight budgets, limited technology innovation, cost cutting, outsourcing and control. But over the past 2 years, digital technologies, including mobile, big data/analytics, social and cloud, have reached a tipping point with their business executives, changing IT’s business and technical context. The tension between cost and digital technologies creates three interlocking issues they must address over the next three years: strategy, funding and skills.

According to Accenture report 2014 conducted by the EIU, the top 5 global business strategies for 2014 will be achieving growth, hunting new accounts or gaining new customers and expanding technology. To achieve future growth most Indian organizations will prioritize investment in human capital and R&D with 82 percent of Indian executives planning to increase their investment in human capital assets like recruitment, retention and training.

According to Gartner, CIOs need to reconsider their focus on cost against the increased demands for digital technologies. CIOs will need to make the case that mainstream emerging mobile, big data/analytics, social and cloud technologies justify revisiting IT budget and investment levels. Digital technologies provide a platform to achieve results, but only if CIOs adopt new roles and behaviours to find digital value.

Uptake in digital technologies

The Accenture report states that companies will have to commit to implementing digital technologies and related business models to enhance their ability to reach new customers in new markets with new products and services. The study reveals two thirds (63 percent) of respondents say their company is primarily using digital technologies to improve process efficiencies and cost reductions, against just 27 percent who are primarily using them to drive growth or to find new ways of reaching customers. Sixty nine of executives participating in the study say digital will have moderate to significant impact on their industry in the next 12 months and 17 percent expect it to completely transform it.

The four keys to digital transformation are –

Think Digitally – Companies must transform the customer from a recipient of products into an active partner. Customers no more remain ‘users’, as they use technology to service themselves, incorporating products and services at will to meet their needs

Emphasize complements, not substitutes – Winning with digital change does not require companies to destroy the existing core business and IT assets. But it, does require companies to create a “dynamic middle” that can simultaneously help cut costs and grow digital and core businesses

Inculcate the ‘all in’ culture – To take advantage of a connected workforce, management and frontline employees must stop operating on separate islands and must communicate transparently with each other and within groups. Top management must also find ways to encourage connectivity and communication across levels and types of workforces with their organizations

4. Build a digital business strategy – To profitably grow in new markets and do business with new consumers in markets experiencing digital disruption, executives must also develop a digital business strategy. An effective digital business strategy uses new approaches to increase strategic agility, generate early experience, and re-incorporate the lessons from that experience into the strategy process.

Digital Technologies priorities for the next decade

Source – Gartner

While markets are being transformed by the emergence of digital technologies, from analytics to cloud and mobile data, India’s business leaders will have to ensure that they see technology not just as a route to improved efficiencies, but as the foundation for reaching new customers with new offerings that will drive growth.