Digital Lifescapes

The gap between digital business aspirations and actual achievements has become increasingly apparent. Recent Gartner research reveals a disconnect: while 87 percent of senior leaders prioritize digitalization, only 48 percent of digital initiatives succeed. This latest assessment demands a deeper examination of digital transformation success factors. The Reality of Digital Transformation The transformation journey extends far beyond technology adoption. Most notably, 91 percent of organizations encounter cultural hurdles during digital implementations—a statistic that should command every executive's attention. This overwhelming figure suggests that many organizations have miscalculated the human element in their digital equation. Traditional transformation barriers persist, but their implications have evolved: The talent shortage (affecting 44 percent of organizations) now represents more than a hiring challenge—it's becoming an existential threat to competitive advantage. Ch...

Is your workforce truly your greatest asset, or is it simply another cost center? The CEO’s role has traditionally been synonymous with strategy, innovation, and financial performance.  However, a seismic shift is underway -- the strategic imperative for Business Technology talent development. The C-suite is increasingly recognizing that the key to unlocking business value lies not just in technology or market share, but in the skilled people who power the organization. Gartner’s latest research study findings underscore this shift, placing workforce considerations as a top-three business priority for chief executives. Business Technologist Market Development This elevation of the workforce to strategic prominence is a direct consequence of several converging trends. The Great Resignation, coupled with an increasingly competitive global talent market, has made talent acquisition and retention a paramount challenge. Moreover, the rapid pace of information technology change demands a...

The main reasons for the Great Resignation are obsolete leadership, fearful middle managers, and a toxic culture that hinders employee engagement. Perhaps that's why some organizations are still struggling with the consideration and development of a flexible working model.  They're incapable of evolving to a more enlightened approach to work where employees are treated with respect. They're stuck in a bygone era of the 20th-century industrial revolution where 'shareholder value' tops all other values, and where spreadsheets and financial data analysis drives all key decision making. We should not be surprised that 76 percent of human resource (HR) leaders now feel that hybrid work challenges an employee's connection to organizational culture, according to a recent survey by Gartner. A 2022 poll of HR leaders reveals the most challenging aspect of setting their hybrid strategy is adjusting the current organizational culture to support a hybrid workforce. In fact,...

An increasingly competitive market for skilled and experienced digital transformation talent has many CEOs now worried that they may not have access to the IT resources needed to complete new projects. Growing demand for key roles has raised salary and bonus expectations among the most qualified.  Furthermore, Information Technology (IT) staff members are more inclined to quit their jobs than employees in other functions, with a 10.2 percent lower 'intent to stay' than non-IT employees -- that's the lowest out of all corporate functions, according to the latest market study by Gartner. And, it has become a worldwide challenge. Gartner surveyed 18,000 employees globally during the fourth quarter of 2021 -- including 1,755 employees in the IT function. Responses were collected monthly across 40 different countries in 15 languages. IT Talent Recruitment and Retention Challenges "While talent retention is a common C-level concern, CIOs are at the epicenter, with a huge chu...

New research uncovers growing momentum for the "Great Resignation" phenomenon. As employers implement their forward-looking strategies, including decisions around hybrid work and increased flexibility, a gap is emerging between executive and employee perceptions, according to the latest market study by Gartner. "We examined the key areas crucial to planning for the future employee experience and discovered significant dissonance between employee and executive sentiment across all," said Alexia Cambon, director at Gartner . "If left unaddressed, this division may lead to a critical failure to build trust and employee buy-in for future of work plans." Flexible Work Market Development The Gartner survey shows that 75 percent of executive leaders believe they are already operating within a culture of flexibility, yet only 57 percent of employees indicate that their organizational culture embraces flexible work. Furthermore, nearly three-quarters of executives ...

The 'future of work' for call center or contact center employees will include more 'flexible working' location options. Seventy percent of customer service and support employees want to continue to work from home (WFH) at least once a week after the pandemic ends, according to the latest market study by Gartner. In September 2020, Gartner surveyed 5,000 employees, including 550 customer service professionals, and found that service employees who traditionally did not have many opportunities to WFH are now used to it and like it, and they wish to continue in some capacity once the pandemic is over. This is in line with most service leaders who believe WFH is here to stay post-pandemic. Eighty-one percent of service leaders believe between 30 percent to 80 percent of their workforce will primarily be working from home two years from now. Future Hybrid Workforce Market Development "As service leaders weigh the future of their work from home programs, they’ll have to b...

Are you still unable to fully launch that Digital Transformation project that your CEO approved months ago? The savvy CIOs and CTOs know that business model innovation progress is achieved by better people, process, and technology advancements -- specifically in that order. Are you ready now? If your current 'team' of employees are unprepared, well you're not alone. Furthermore, many organizations are struggling to hire 'quality talent' as only 16 percent of new hires possess the needed skills for both their current role and the future, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. Moreover, what's the likelihood that this 'cream of the crop' wants to work at your company? Ongoing Quest for Aptly Skilled Talent To hire quality talent, recruiting leaders must shift their strategies from replacing the workforce to instead 'shaping the workforce' by defining needs based on skills, sourcing talent more broadly and creating responsive emp...

Managing big data apps is a challenge for many IT organizations. Moreover, chief data officers (CDOs) and their data and analytics (DA) teams are not achieving the best balance required to deliver superior performance, according to the latest market study by Gartner. "CDOs are generally focused upon the right things, but they do not have the right mix of activities," said Debra Logan, vice president at Gartner . Data and Analytics Market Development The Gartner survey found that while the creation of a data-driven culture was ranked the number one critical factor to the DA team, there were conflicting rankings for technical and nontechnical activities (data integration and data skills training), and strategic and tactical activities (enterprise information management [EIM] program and architecting a DA platform). While the implementation of a DA strategy was ranked the number three most-critical success factor by 28 percent of CDOs, another strategic activity – creati...

It's a proven fact, digital transformation is not possible in a large enterprise organization where legacy middle-managers do everything within their power to resist any change to the status quo. A lack of culture change will typically result in no meaningful progress. According to Gartner, a proactive and adaptive culture is a critical asset and some CIOs will likely play a role in establishing the right mindsets and practices within their organizations. Gartner predicts that by 2021, some CIOs will be as responsible for culture change as chief HR officers (CHROs). Organization Change Management Goals “A lot of CIOs have realized that culture can be an accelerator of digital transformation and that they have the means to reinforce the desired culture through their technology choices,” said Elise Olding, research vice president at Gartner . “A partnership with the CHRO is the perfect way to align technology selections and design processes to shape the desired work behaviors.”...

IDC unveiled its top information and communications technology (ICT) predictions for Asia-Pacific excluding Japan (APeJ) region. IDC now predicts that many more organizations will be 'digitally determined' by 2020, transforming commercial markets and reimagining their future growth potential. Digitally determined organizations demonstrate the ability to vision, plan, and operationalize their digital transformation (DX) through ambition, grit, discipline and commitment. Ultimately, all digital determined organizations aspire to become 'digital native enterprises'. Digital Business Market Development "To be one of the digitally determined, Asia-Pacific organizations requires more than tenacity; it requires a blueprint that consists of a single enterprise strategy, resoluteness to make required organizational and cultural changes, a long investment strategy based on the principle that digital is inherently valuable to the business; and should have a single digit...

Do you wonder, are there significant benefits for building a culture of digital trust? New research has uncovered a direct connection between the cause and effect of bad actors in organizations across the globe. Information technology has many uses, but business leaders must be mindful of compliance. Twenty-nine percent of employees observed at least one compliance violation at work in 2016 or 2017, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. The survey, which sampled more than 5,000 employees at all levels, found that these workers are twice as likely to leave their organization. Fifty-nine percent of the sampled employees who observed a compliance violation were actively looking for a new job, compared with 29 percent who did not witness bad behavior. The Business Case for Compliance "While attrition is not an obvious area of concern for compliance executives, it should be," said Brian Lee, compliance practice leader at Gartner . "Employee miscon...

Becoming a Digital Business is very challenging because it demands new thinking, a willingness to evolve and bold ideas. As market leaders continue to embrace a digital transformation agenda, they're finding that the transition requires significant changes to organizational culture and internal systems. A recent Gartner survey found that a relatively small number of organizations have been able to successfully scale their digital business initiatives beyond the experimentation and piloting stages. "The reality is that digital business demands different skills, working practices, organizational models and even cultures," said Marcus Blosch, research vice president at Gartner . "To change an organization designed for a structured, process-oriented world to one that's designed for ecosystems, adaptation, learning and experimentation is hard." Gartner has identified six barriers that CIOs must overcome to transform their organization into a truly digital b...

Who is leading digital transformation at the most forward-thinking organizations across the globe, and what are the most significant roadblocks to their progress? That depends, on who you ask. Let's consider the most common digital business challenges today, and how savvy leaders overcome them. Digital growth tops the list of CEO business priorities in 2018 and 2019, according to the latest worldwide market study by Gartner. However, as growth becomes harder to achieve, CEOs are concentrating on changing and upgrading the structure of their companies -- including digital business investments. Exploring Digital Business Transformation Culture "Although growth remains a CEO's biggest priority, there was a significant fall in simple mentions of it this year, from 58 percent in 2017 to just 40 percent in 2018. This doesn't mean CEOs are less focused on growth, instead it shows that they're shifting perspective on how to obtain it," said Mark Raskino, vice pr...

Organizational security online is everyone's responsibility, and a key part of all digital transformations. Furthermore, maintaining 'digital trust' is a critical aspect of all business technology deployments. Besides, the concept of digital trust is essential in the Financial Services sector of the Global Networked Economy. People trust banks with their money, insurance companies with their health and future and investment companies with their savings, and yet the recent International Data Corporation (IDC) market study highlighted that how these organizations manage IT security is not as advanced as we might expect. Digital Trust Assessment in Asia-Pacific The report of the findings entitled "IT Security in Financial Services in Asia-Pacific (Excluding Japan) 2017" studied the maturity of 106 financial services organization and found that, on a scale of 1-5 for IT security maturity, more than two thirds of all respondents (71.6 percent) were at either stag...

Yet another market study has explored the challenges that IT organizations encounter, as they pursue the adoption of DevOps practices. More than 2,000 IT industry executives participated in a survey online and at tech industry events during 2016. The survey was completed in the United States, with respondents drawn from engineering, managerial, architect and C-level executive roles. Here's the key findings from this DevOps survey results: Fully 54 percent of respondents indicated they had no access to self-service infrastructure. This meant that more than half of respondents took a ticket-based approach to infrastructure delivery, impacting productivity and increasing time to market. Of those surveyed, only 23 percent said infrastructure can be delivered in less than one day. Over 33 percent of respondents said it takes up to a month to deliver infrastructure with 26 percent saying it takes up to one month or more to deliver infrastructure. Lack of access to the right infrast...

Your brand's message is most effective when it conveys real meaning and substance. That's what people value the most, and it's been a disruptive trend. Between 1999 and 2014, 47 percent of prior known brands fell off the top '100 Leader Brands' list, according to the latest worldwide market study by PwC. While the list used to be led by Media companies, today, the most progressive Technology companies are setting the pace of change. Besides, the millennial generation are also drivers of this shift, elevating these enlightened companies to the top of the list. In today's highly social, interconnected and transparent world, people look at everything from the company's stated mission to what the company actually does -- it's well beyond a quality product or service, a striking logo and obligatory advertising campaign. The world of branding has changed; so has effective marketing communications . Meaning and Substance Drive Profit The PwC study shows...

I wasn’t able to attend the full Digital Shoreditch Festival, just a few days from the second week of scheduled events. That being said, I’m really glad that I witnessed part of the second annual festival of creative, cultural and technological developments within this evolving East London community. I had mentioned – before my visit – I believe that London, England has some things in common with the emerging tech and digital creative clusters in Austin, Texas. But based upon what I saw and heard during the insightful Digital Shoreditch activities, I’m now thinking that there are more similarities with the New York City clusters. London has a wealth of creative talent focused on the fashion, architecture and design sectors of the global networked economy. Few places in the world can likely match this amazing combination of artistic assets and intellectual capacity. Besides, the local higher-education and professional mentoring opportunities are clearly more attuned to the app...