Who Will Lead The Way To Digital Transformation?

Success in the digital economy may start at the top, but not many executives are leading the charge toward digital transformations, according to the results of a study released this week.

The study, from business analysis firm Oxford Economics, found that only one in five business executives is a "digital leader," what Oxford calls a new class of leadership that embraces a digital mindset and yields stronger business outcomes.

What happens at organizations that have digital leaders? Here's what the Oxford study, Leaders 2020, found:

  • BETTER FINANCIALS: Seventy-six percent of digital leaders report strong revenue and profit growth, compared with 55 percent of all other executives who were surveyed;
  • MORE SATISFIED EMPLOYEES: Eighty-seven percent have employees who are more likely to be satisfied with their work (the rest of the field? 63 percent); and
  • BETTER EMPLOYEE RETENTION: Seventy-five percent of digital leaders said they would stay at their jobs if offered the chance to leave (the rest of the field? 54 percent).

And digital leaders themselves are more apt to make data-driven decisions (78 percent, compared with 55 percent of other organizations) and make them in real time (62 percent, vs. 46 percent).

"It's clear that a different kind of leadership is required to succeed in the digital economy," Mike Ettling, an executive with SAP, which sponsored the study, said in a statement distributed by the ERP vendor.

For solution providers, knowing where your customers are with their digital transformation journeys can guide you in shaping what kind of help and expertise you can offer them. In a recent interview with IT Best Of Breed, Sam Gross, chief technology officer at CompuCom Systems, a solution provider based in Plano, Texas, said the "earliest success" with any new set of disruptive technologies, such as those associated with digital transformations, "has always been with a services provider that can bring that expertise to them, either in the form of a software-as-a -service platform or in the form of access to new skills and new knowledge and new frameworks."

Want to read more on the topic? Here are three links worth checking out:

FORBES: Top 10 Trends For Digital Transformation In 2017

FINEXTRA: Lack Of IT Resources Hitting Digital Transformation

CRN: How To Run, Change And Grow A Company Through Digital Transformation