One of the biggest epiphanies that emerged from our research for the report, “How Digital Thinking Separates Retail Leaders from Laggards” is the difference between leaders and laggards. Digital leaders see digital transformation as a positive, while digital laggards express far more fears and concerns related to digital technologies. In fact, almost 72% of digital laggards are concerned they are wasting money by investing in digital technologies, but only 25% of digital leaders share those apprehensions.
In our analysis, the worries expressed by some digital laggards are justified, as they may be the result of existing IT environments that are incapable of delivering a real-time, contextually relevant and personalized digital shopping experience. These concerns may also stem from leadership’s unwillingness to adopt a digital mindset or invest in the required upgrades, technologies, doctrines, strategies, skills and business processes to elevate their organization’s digital wherewithal.
A retailer’s attitude about the potential of digital technologies to positively impact business performance is an important indicator of the company’s commitment to digital transformation and is seen as a predictor of digital success. Digitally mature retailers are significantly more enthusiastic about how digital impacts their work than digital laggards are. Our research findings suggest a correlation between a retailer’s growth trajectory and its confidence that digital technologies deployed between now and 2020 will have a positive impact on growth.
Retail executives at companies that are digital leaders have a far more positive attitude than laggards about the impact of digital technologies on their jobs. These retail executives believe, at a significantly higher level than those at laggard organizations, that digital technologies will help them become more efficient, manage people better, work faster, be more creative and innovative, make better decisions, provide more freedom and flexibility, and make more money.
When asked a more general question about the impact of digital on work, retail digital leaders expressed their belief in a far stronger impact than digital laggards did. The majority of digital leaders feel business analytics, AI, concerns about security and privacy, bots, digital technology regulations and practices will greatly impact work, as will the state of being hyper-connected.
You can download the full report, "How Digital Thinking Separates Retail Leaders from Laggards" here.
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:
- Analyzing Retail Through Digital Lenses
- Digital Thinking and Beyond!
- 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
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.
