The military strategist Colonel John Boyd wrote that success depends on three things, 1) People, 2) Ideas, and 3) Things, in that order. People have to be trained to think and do the right things, using the right ideas (doctrines, strategies and tactics) and then utilize the best things (equipment, materials, design, etc.) that you can. In my new report, “How Digital Thinking Separates Retail Leaders from Laggards,” we focus on the differences in thinking between leaders and laggards.
Here are some of our key findings:
- Digital commerce outpaces brick-and mortar. Already a significant retail driver, digital commerce is predicted to increase in importance by 68% for surveyed retailers between now and 2020. This trend has motivated many retailers to invest strategically in digital technologies.
- Digital leaders outperform digital laggards. There is a correlation between companies with strong revenue growth and digital leadership, and retailers with a higher percentage of online sales. Companies that have experienced early digital commerce success are also likely to express a more positive outlook on the value of digital technologies to the overall business.
- Retailers don’t know if they are winning the race. Many retailers find it difficult to evaluate their relative digital maturity and how they compare with competitors.
- Digital leaders think differently about the role and value of digital technologies, including the ability of these tools to enable competitive advantage in the form of revenue growth, and positively impact work and jobs. As a result, leaders are developing more aggressive technology plans and strategies than digital laggards.
- Digital technologies will transform jobs in positive ways. Digital leaders believe digital technologies will help them increase efficiency, manage people better, work faster, be more creative and innovative, make better decisions, boost freedom and flexibility, and even help them make more money by 2020.
- Digital leaders believe digital technologies will have a big impact on work by 2020. Far more so than laggards, digital leaders believe work will be significantly impacted by technologies such as business analytics and artificial intelligence. They are simultaneously concerned about data security and privacy, bots, new regulations on digital businesses and hyper-connectivity of people and things.
- Retailers with very strong revenue growth have different opinions than moderate growth retailers as to which skills will be needed by 2020. The biggest differences in opinions are in the areas of fabrication, verbal and written communications, and language and design skills.
What are the ideas that Colonel John Boyd spoke about? I need you to help me identify those good ideas for digital strategies by taking a short 5-minute digital strategy survey, https://goo.gl/forms/bquUpmkaYFK6QZQt2. I am giving a copy of the book, "What to Do When Machines Do Everything," to the first 50 people in North America to complete the survey.
Download my latest report, "How Digital Thinking Separates Retail Leaders from Laggards."
Watch the 3-minute video on digital thinking in retail.
Follow Kevin Benedict on Twitter @krbenedict, or read more of his articles on digital transformation strategies here:
- Measuring the Pace of Change in the Fourth Industrial Revolution
- How Digital Thinking Separates Retail Leaders from Laggards
- To Bot, or Not to Bot
- Oils, Bots, AI and Clogged Arteries
- Artificial Intelligence Out of Doors in the Kingdom of Robots
- How Digital Leaders are Different
- The Three Tsunamis of Digital Transformation - Be Prepared!
- Bots, AI and the Next 40 Months
- You Only Have 40 Months to Digitally Transform
- Digital Technologies and the Greater Good
- Video Report: 40 Months of Hyper-Digital Transformation
- Report: 40 Months of Hyper-Digital Transformation
- Virtual Moves to Real in with Sensors and Digital Transformation
- Technology Must Disappear in 2017
- Merging Humans with AI and Machine Learning Systems
- In Defense of the Human Experience in a Digital World
- Profits that Kill in the Age of Digital Transformation
- Competing in Future Time and Digital Transformation
- Digital Hope and Redemption in the Digital Age
- Digital Transformation and the Role of Faster
- Digital Transformation and the Law of Thermodynamics
- Jettison the Heavy Baggage and Digitally Transform
- Digital Transformation - The Dark Side
- Business is Not as Usual in Digital Transformation
- 15 Rules for Winning in Digital Transformation
- The End Goal of Digital Transformation
- Digital Transformation and the Ignorance Penalty
- Surviving the Three Ages of Digital Transformation
- The Advantages of an Advantage in Digital Transformation
- From Digital to Hyper-Transformation
- Believers, Non-Believers and Digital Transformation
- Forces Driving the Digital Transformation Era
- Digital Transformation Requires Agility and Energy Measurement
- A Doctrine for Digital Transformation is Required
- Digital Transformation and Its Role in Mobility and Competition
- Digital Transformation - A Revolution in Precision Through IoT, Analytics and Mobility
- Competing in Digital Transformation and Mobility
- Ambiguity and Digital Transformation
- Digital Transformation and Mobility - Macro-Forces and Timing
- Mobile and IoT Technologies are Inside the Curve of Human Time
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Kevin Benedict
Senior Analyst, Center for the Future of Work, Cognizant
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***Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and digital transformation analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.
