51% of businesses lack expertise necessary to execute digital strategies
According to Salmon and Rackspace’s commissioned research, conducted by Forrester, while 81% of businesses have a well-defined digital strategy only 11% are what they class as digital experts – those who design their strategies to improve the customer experience, have a clear funding structure and focus on data analytics.
The majority (51%), however, are classed as laggards due to weak strategies and the inability to execute them. Their focus is on internal processes and cost reduction at the expense of the customer experience, generating new revenue, attracting new customers and launching into new markets.
“‘Digital’ is not a new phenomenon, however, embarking on projects still brings challenges – from unified decision-making to ensuring the right in-house skills are in place,” says Neil Stewart, CEO of Salmon. “This study shows that the problem is two-fold – most businesses not only invest without the right strategy but their ability to execute is poor. This is a huge problem and it must be addressed. Businesses need help to digitally transform and all in the industry, from vendors to governments, must act now.”
The top challenges facing organizations identified by the research include a lack of funds allocated to digital strategy (49%), business-wide KPI conflicts (38%), poor integration with legacy systems (33%) and damage to a digital team’s credibility based on poor execution of past projects (27%).
