People First: Focus on Digital Culture to Accelerate Transformation

If you think that big investments in digital transformation projects or simply adopting the latest emerging technology automatically guarantees digital acceleration, think again.

Successful digital transformation occurs at the intersection of technology, processes, and people—with the human element often the least understood and developed.

This is starting to shift, however, as digital culture is rapidly emerging as a key to accelerating not only digital adoption, but achieving the right business outcomes, according to the results of CTG’s third annual digital transformation decision-maker research.

After all, the most innovative digital platform or tool will only create value if it is aligned properly with key business processes and delivers the optimal employee and customer experiences that keep them using the technology.

With more than half of digital transformations failing to meet their goals, building a strong digital culture can’t be an afterthought. And as survey respondents made clear, improving digital culture is vital to elevating organizations’ overall digital maturity, and ultimately, their digital transformation success.

The report, based on input from 877 digital transformation decision makers in the U.S. and Western Europe, underscored the nexus between a company’s digital culture and success exploiting new technology and more digitized ways of working. Despite an accelerated focus on technology expansion in recent years, the results reveal how the absence of strong digital cultures continues to prevent many organizations from reaping the full benefit of their digital transformation initiatives.

In fact, a substandard employee experience was the most common digital transformation challenge resulting in poor or compromised performance, with customer experience, customer service and support, and operational efficiency challenges also contributing to digital projects falling short of their goals.

None of this has escaped the attention of digital transformation leaders. Indeed, most survey respondents agreed that improving digital culture, including collaboration and alignment between non-IT and IT-focused workforces, is critical in today’s increasingly digital workplace.

A couple of encouraging signs: nearly a quarter of respondents (23%) suggest that improving and encouraging the successful adoption of digital transformation can be achieved by executive leadership more closely engaging with the IT workforce on digital transformation challenges.

What’s more, a vast majority of survey respondents (87%) agreed that developing digital skills in non-IT workers is a priority for ensuring successful digital transformation.

But technology professionals need to do more as well, with the same percentage of respondents (87%) agreeing IT workers must communicate more effectively with non-IT workers to bolster the chances for digital transformation success.

The clear takeaway from the report: organizations thinking about digital transformation must make fostering a digital culture that matches their digital strategy a priority. This means focusing on the leadership, communication, collaboration, and upskilling required for digital transformation success as much as the technology platforms and tools.

Explore the report now to learn more

Our next blog post in this series will highlight survey findings related to the top technologies that digital leaders are prioritizing this year.