As someone who has worked on several digital change projects, I can see that things are changing. There was a time when digital change was all over the news and everyone in business and tech was talking about it. But lately, it looks like it’s been less important. This change made me wonder: has AI become the new big thing in media, pushing digital transformation to the background? Or has digital transformation just stopped being important because most businesses and governments have already been through different stages of it, with varying degrees of success? I chose to look into the most recent data and trends to find out how digital change is going right now.
My goal was to determine if digital transformation is still as important as it used to be or if it has changed into a more subtle but important part of business plans. After looking into this, I came up with the piece below, which gives you a new view of where digital transformation stands right now in terms of technology progress and organizational change.
General numbers and trends about the digital transformation
When you think back to the time before COVID, going digital in your business was just a nice thing to have. Now, though, because the pandemic has messed up businesses worldwide so badly, going digital is a must.
After the outbreak, most consulting and research companies have stressed how important it is to go digital. It is very possible that companies will put more money into AI, AR/VR, IoT, and other new technologies over the next few years.
Rate of market expansion and uptake Data, Trends, and Forecast on Digital Transformation
- The global market for digital transformation was valued at $469.8 billion in 2020. It is expected to increase in value by 16.5% a year to $1,009.8 billion by 2025.
- The amount of money invested directly in digital transformation is projected to reach $7 trillion, growing at a rate of 18% per year from 2020 to 2023, according to IDC. This is because companies have been building on existing investments and plans to become digital-scale businesses in the future.
- Markets and Markets says that the digital transformation market will grow at a rate of 19.1% per year, rising from $521.5 billion in 2021 to $127.5 billion in 2026.
- It is expected that by 2026, the world will have spent 3.4 trillion U.S. dollars on digital change.
- Six times more likely to be successful is organization’s digital change if its Chief Digital Officer is involved.
- By 2025, the World Economic Forum says that going digital will have added $100 trillion to the world economy. Also, by 2025, platform-driven exchanges are likely to make up about two-thirds of the $100 trillion worth of value that is at stake from digitization.
- Statista says that between 2022 and 2025, the amount of money invested in digital change worldwide will almost double, rising from 1.8 trillion U.S. dollars to 2.8 trillion U.S. dollars.
- Prophet says that market forces are the main things that drive digital change because 51% of the work is done to find growth possibilities and 41% is done to deal with more competition. High-profile data breach stories are in the news all the time, and new regulations like GDPR are also pushing businesses to change (38%).
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IDC says that by 2025, AI technology will be used in at least 90% of new business apps, both in the way they work and the things they make.
- A study by Research and Markets says that AR/VR technology will grow the fastest until 2025, even though the Internet of Things (IoT) had the biggest part of the digital transformation market in 2019.
- By 2023, digitally changed businesses are projected to make up $53.3 trillion, which is more than half of the GDP.
- It is expected that the digital transformation market will grow at a rate of 23% per year from 2019 to 2025, hitting a value of $3.3 trillion.
Digital transformation data on current company adoption
Businesses and corporations today recognize that success can be attained with a strong digital strategy, even though many of these firms have just recently begun the process of digital transformation. These digital transformation trends attest to it.
Statistics on the importance of digitization and digital strategy
- According to Gartner, 91% of organizations are pursuing some type of digital project, and 87% of top business executives consider digitalization a priority.
- 89% of all businesses have chosen or intend to implement a digital-first company strategy.
- According to a Statista survey, the two major goals of CEOs to assist their firms in surviving the COVID-19 epidemic are spearheading digital transformation initiatives (37%), and boosting remote work experience (37%).
- Gartner predicts that intelligent systems will generate 70% of client contacts by 2022.
- IDC predicts that by 2022, 65% of global GDP will be digitalized. This is expected to fuel more than $6.8 trillion in direct digital transformation expenditures between 2020 and 2023.
- According to Prophet, CIOs own or sponsor 28% of digital transformation efforts, while 23% of CEOs are increasingly taking on leadership roles.
- By 2025, three out of every four corporate leaders will be able to adapt to new markets and sectors using digital channels.
- According to Gartner, 60% of mainstream organizations will make being a composable company a strategic goal. It will allow them to add new features 80% faster than their competition.
Cloud Implementation
- The mainstreaming of emerging technologies is driving cloud spending, per Gartner.
- Gartner projects that global cloud revenue will increase from $408 billion in 2021 to $474 billion in 2022.
- Businesswire cited a Technavio study that projects a $25.54 billion increase in the global healthcare cloud market by 2024.
- As of 2021, businesses have invested $58.3 billion in artificial intelligence; this amount is expected to increase to $309.6 billion by 2026, per Markets and Markets.
- Based on a report by Fortune Business Insights, the worldwide market for cloud storage is anticipated to surpass $390 billion by 2028.
Factual information regarding the evolution of the customer experience in digital transformation
In a marketplace that is becoming more and more competitive, businesses are compelled to possess a competitive advantage and the ability to obtain momentum over their rivals. Improving the experiences of their consumers is one such edge. The focal point of digital transformation is the customer. The classified digital transformation statistics serve as proof of this.
Customer Experience System Statistics
- 54% of transformation efforts continue to prioritize modernizing customer touchpoints, while 45% allocate resources to enabling infrastructure, according to Prophet. However, 41% of organizations have invested in digital transformation without conducting comprehensive customer research, which constitutes a failure to perform due diligence.
- According to BusinessWire, enterprises are projected to allocate a total of $641 billion towards the consumer experience in 2022.
- Nearly half of all businesses surveyed by PwC cite customer satisfaction and experience enhancement as the primary motivations for initiating a digital transformation.
- According to a survey by Gartner, 64% of customer service and support leaders will prioritize business growth in 2022.
- 86% of consumers would sever all ties with a familiar brand following a single negative encounter.
Omnichannel strategy
Omnichannel refers to the fundamental concept of delivering a unified consumer experience through various channels and touchpoints. It aids in the retention of consumers, which enables revenue growth and maintenance, and promotes the digitization of your company, as these digital transformation statistics demonstrate.
- The proportion of businesses investing in omnichannel experiences has increased from 20% to over 80%, per PwC.
- 35% of retailers anticipate increasing spending on artificial intelligence and 63% on data analytics and business intelligence.
- Retailers that have already adopted digital transformation will increase revenue and consumer loyalty, according to Top Business Tech. Those who have yet to adopt this strategy will find it difficult to compete and fail to impress their clientele.
Digital transformation best practices
A comprehension of a strategic plan is crucial to ensure that endeavors toward digital transformation are profitable. The advice obtained from these facts regarding digital transformation could potentially be advantageous. Additionally, gaining knowledge of optimal strategies to prevent the aforementioned obstacles and circumvent the setbacks of pilot programs is advantageous. 56% of CEOs, according to Gartner, believe digital advancements have increased revenue. 89% of all businesses have implemented a digital-first business strategy or have intentions to do so.
Companies that have a Chief Digital Officer on staff are 1.6 times more likely to report a successful digital transformation, per McKinsey. According to new data from PwC, 70% of business executives anticipate that COVID-19 will transition from a pandemic to an endemic by 2022. Experience-driven organizations have an average order value that is 1.9 times greater and customer satisfaction rates that are 1.6 times greater, according to Adobe. By 2022, 90% of corporate strategies will explicitly identify information as a critical business asset and analytics as a critical competency, according to Gartner.
Failures of Digital Transformation
In the absence of a clearly defined operational framework, digital strategies will inevitably fail to materialize, regardless of how unconventional or innovative the technological solutions implemented may be.
To prevent the pitfalls illustrated in these digital transformation statistics, businesses should develop a meticulously planned and continuously revised digital transformation strategy.
- An Everest Group study found that 73% of organizations declined to deliver any business value from their digital transformation efforts.
- A study by Boston Consulting Group revealed to Forbes that, despite leadership alignment, an astounding 70% of digital transformation initiatives fail to achieve their intended objectives.
- McKinsey research reveals that a significant 70% of digital transformations encounter failure for various reasons.
- McKinsey reports that 70% of digital transformations fail, with employee resistance being the most common cause.
- A mere 16% of personnel hold the belief that the digital reforms implemented by their organization have effectively bolstered productivity and are enduring.
Digital Transformation Difficulties
Organizations confront a multitude of obstacles that precipitate snags in their digital transformation endeavors. These include workforce noncompliance, which impedes the progress of initiatives, the identification of suitable and optimal skill sets throughout the organization, resistance to change, and complications associated with quantifying return on investment (ROI).
In order to circumvent these pitfalls, organizations ought to be cognizant of the obstacles illustrated by these digital transformation statistics. and surmount them.
- 28% of businesses report that digital transformation is still frequently viewed as a cost center and 29% claim that ROI data is scarce. Prophet also identifies cultural issues, entrenched viewpoints, resistance to change (26%), and legal and compliance concerns (26%) as significant obstacles to progress.
- Over seventy-six percent (76%) of retailers responded to a Fujitsu survey that found that they found the complexity of the implementation to be either somewhat challenging or extremely challenging. This represents the greatest obstacle overall. Additional significant obstacles comprise 75% the availability of skilled personnel, 75% the initial investment, 75% the time required to realize benefits, and 74% security and privacy concerns.
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Per IDG, more than one-third of chief information officers (CIOs) foresee challenges in locating suitable skill sets in the technological domains of data science and cybersecurity.
Jobs in digital transformation These trends in digital change show how jobs will be in higher demand in the changing world of today and tomorrow. CompTIA says that during the COVID-19 pandemic, four out of ten companies hired IT or other technical staff, and two-thirds planned to hire more IT or tech jobs in 2021. According to CompTIA, 41% of companies will put more stress on communication and new technology skills for people who work from home, and 42% plan to make new efforts to upskill and reskill present workers. According to CIO Dive, more than three-quarters (79% of companies) are working on projects to fill gaps in their IT staff as the job market gets tighter.
Digital Transformation in Small and Medium-Sized Businesses
- Gartner says that until 2025, 60% of the workload for medium businesses will stay on-premise.
- According to a study by SCORE, 77% of small businesses use social media to raise awareness of their brand, help customers, and make more sales.
- A poll found that 57% of small business owners think they need to improve their IT systems to run their businesses more efficiently.
- A study on statistics says that 51% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) depend on social media to grow and that 65% of SMEs think it works well for advertising.
- A study found that 92% of small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) think going digital is important for their business.
Industry-Specific Digital Transformation Statistics and Predictions
Here’s a list of digital transformation figures that allow you to gain deeper insights into the current scenario across different and varying industries.
Digital transformation statistics for retail
More than two-thirds of those who answered (71.1%) agree with Fujitsu that digital change is an important part of retail technology. Fujitsu says that only 9.5% of stores say they are very early adopters. Another 25% say they are somewhat early adopters, and 37% say they are neither late adopters nor early adopters. Fujitsu says that the main things that are driving digital change in retail are greater competitiveness (which 70% of those surveyed said was very or very important), better efficiency and lower costs (69%), stronger customer ties (69%), and more sales (67%). 63% of stores say they plan to spend more on business intelligence and data analytics, and 35% say they plan to spend more on artificial intelligence.
Digital transformation statistics for healthcare
- Based on the findings of the IDG, the most successful sectors for digital-first company strategies are the service industry (95%), the financial services industry (93%), and the healthcare industry (92%).
- In the course of the pandemic, there was a fifteen percent increase in the number of customers who used digital technologies for the purpose of providing health assistance. According to a McKinsey survey, 37% of customers are very likely to use telehealth shortly.
- According to McKinsey, virtualization has the potential to save up to $250 billion of the current healthcare expenditures in the United States, which accounts for twenty percent of the total.
- According to Mckinsey, the use of telehealth has increased from 11% to 76% since the pandemic.
- According to BusinessWire, the artificial intelligence (AI) business in the healthcare industry will have a total revenue potential of more than $34 billion by the year 2025.
- Statistics from Statista indicate that by the year 2025, the worldwide market for digital health is anticipated to have grown to more than 500 billion United States dollars.
- By the year 2025, Grand View Research forecasts that the worldwide market for virtual and augmented reality in the healthcare industry will have reached a value of $5.1 billion.
- According to 360 Market Updates, the worldwide market for wearable medical devices is anticipated to reach $27.2 billion by the year 2023, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23% from 2018 to 2023.
- According to MarketsandMarkets, the worldwide market for healthcare chatbots is expected to reach $314.3 million by the year 2023, up from $122 million in 2018.
Digital transformation statistics for banking and insurance
- According to McKinsey, artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning methods will be responsible for automating 25 percent of the insurance business by the year 2025. This is because the insurance sector is full of bottlenecks and manual operations.
- According to the results of Cornerstone Advisors’ 2022 What’s Going On in Banking survey, 75% of financial institutions, including banks and credit unions, have already started a digital transformation program, and another 15% plan to do so in that year.
- According to Forbes, over half of the financial institutions that began their plan in the year 2020 have reached a point where they are at least halfway through the implementation of their strategy.
Statistics on the digital transformation of the industrial industry
- A total of $263 billion was estimated to be the value of digital transformation in the industrial industry in the year 2020. According to Mordor Intelligence, it is anticipated that it will reach $767 billion by the year 2026 and will operate at a growth rate of 19.48% for the period that is forecasted to be between 2021 and 2026.
- A single hour of downtime in a manufacturing company’s systems, networks, applications, or other hardware may cost at least $300,000. This is according to the International Trade Commission (ITIC), which studies the manufacturing industry.
Statistics on the digital transformation of human resources, learning, and development
- Forrester estimates that by the year 2030, automation will be responsible for the elimination of 29% of employment while simultaneously contributing 13% to the development of new ones.
- Competencies in digital technology are essential to today’s job. According to projections made by the World Economic Forum, by the year 2022, 54 percent of all workers will need extensive retraining.
- According to PwC research, the majority of employers who are most concerned about digital skills believe that a lack of essential skills is a barrier to innovation.
- According to data collected by Statista, business and HR leaders all over the world use artificial intelligence (AI) to assist workers in their organizations. Among these leaders, 58% of them stated that the primary use of AI in this context was to improve consistency and quality. Additionally, 26% of them stated that AI is used to assist workers by improving productivity, and the remaining 16% used it to improve insights.
Statistical information on digital transformation for other industries
- The outcomes of the COVID-19 event are likely to have a significant impact on the global digital transformation investment in the logistics industry, which is projected to reach $84.6 billion by the year 2027.
- It is anticipated that by the year 2023, the total amount of money spent on services and technology that would enable digital transformation will equal $2.3 trillion worldwide.
- The majority of firms are turning to digital technology in order to solve the issue of environmental sustainability.
- The underwriting of insurance policies, warehousing, and manufacturing operations, and customer service are among the occupations that are anticipated to be automated over the next five to ten years.
Conclusion
In conclusion, in today’s fast-changing market, companies that have not yet begun the process of digital transformation are not only at a significant disadvantage but also at a significant disadvantage relative to their competitors. A fact that cannot be denied is that the future of labor is closely intertwined with the disruption and development of technological innovation. This new environment is characterized by a rapid speed of change, in which conventional methods of operation are regularly challenged and reinvented via the use of digital ways of doing things.
As a result of the information that is given in this article, the importance of digital transformation cannot be overstated for companies that are looking to keep or even improve their competitive advantage. In an age in which digital skills often determine market leadership and innovation, the inability of companies to adapt and embrace digital transformation may result in firms lagging behind their rivals who have already recognized and exploited the potential of digital technology.
It is of utmost importance for businesses to comprehend that digital transformation is not merely the incorporation of new technologies; rather, it is a comprehensive change that encompasses the reorganization of organizational processes, cultures, and strategies to fully capitalize on the potential of digital innovations. The implementation of this transformation helps organizations more effectively adapt to the requirements of their customers, simplify their processes, and open up new opportunities for development and innovation.
In summary, the road towards digital transformation is not only a choice for organizations that want to survive in the modern, fast-paced business climate; rather, it is a need for such firms. Within the context of the contemporary market, the incorporation of digital tactics into business models is no longer a luxury but rather a vital prerequisite for maintaining and expanding one’s presence.