Seven Key Characteristics Of Digital Champion Companies

To find what factors contribute to digital transformation success, my company, Trianz, surveyed over 5000 organizations across 20 industries. From those 5000 plus responses, we began to tabulate KPIs to gauge the value companies received from their digital transformations.

Surprisingly, we discovered that only 7% succeed in digitalization and produce superior business performance. We call the 7% “Digital Champions”, and they can be defined by their visions and priorities that evolve by predicting customer behavior. They also have well-trained talent, digital workplaces, and modern global cultures. In effect, every aspect of their business converges at the intersection of data, customers, and technology.

While there is no standardized blueprint for digital transformation success, our data shows that Digital Champions share seven characteristics. These characteristics are interconnected and indispensable to anyone looking to catch up or leap ahead of the competition.

1. Extreme Customer Centricity

Digital Champions constantly anticipate and provide what customers need and value. They abandon the traditional mindset of “If we build it, they will come,” or “We’ve been around, and we know what customers want” attitudes.

The beauty of being customer-centric is that the more you engage with your customers, the more they tell you about what they want. Digital Champions fixate on these continuous feedback loops and become masters of anticipation. In other words, they have transitioned to a customer-driven organization.

2. Command Over Ecosystem Data

The traditional view of a company’s domain is its customers, partners, employees, and leaders. These are all connected in an organizational framework of functions, policies, and business rules.

Digital Champions have a different definition of their company’s ecosystem. In my book Crossing the Digital Faultline, I outline this concept of “ecosystem data” in more detail. In short, they believe that transactions, conversations, opinions, and influences outside their company are equally important.

They harness and analyze millions of data points generated every minute of every day. In fact, nearly 75% of Digital Champions base their strategies almost entirely on data-driven insights.

3. Connected Products and Services

More than 70% of R&D leaders in Digital Champion companies have introduced digital interfaces and telematics — or the process of keeping customers, devices, and services connected through the internet while gathering information about behavior, usage, and experience. They learn from this data and generate ideas that help to improve their company’s value propositions.

4. Digitalized and Experience-Centric Operations

Top management alignment is a key differentiator in Digital Champions. In advanced digitalized enterprises, a highly dynamic and connected transactional layer governs customer experience and spans the enterprise.

Whether the experience has to do with customers, partners, suppliers, employees, or management, all functions involved in these operations unify to deliver outstanding experiences while collecting underlying data for further innovation.

5. Digitalized Workplaces

While many companies are still using manual, inefficient, and tedious collaboration models and decision-making processes — Digital Champions have invested in creating modern, virtual, and digitalized workplaces. As a result, they have built internal credibility by helping to make the lives of their employees easier and more productive.

6. Cloud-Enabled IT Infrastructures

Digital Champions use technology to power their business and empower the employees who run it. They analyze large volumes of data and deliver consistent experiences with cloud infrastructure. Besides reducing costs, the cloud dramatically accelerates the cycle time for delivering technology solutions.

7. Secure Business Ecosystems

The frontiers of a business are no longer limited to its walls, showrooms, and internal business processes. The modern enterprise has expanded into an internet-based mobile ecosystem of transactions with access to sites, applications, documents, and data — all moving beyond the firewalls of the company.

Digital Champions have invested heavily in ensuring that the company’s data and transactions are secure. Undoubtedly, their foresight will be a powerful advantage as cybersecurity becomes more serious and regulated.

Looking Ahead

Technology is not a panacea but an enabler that allows people, processes, and information to work in unison. While significant investments are necessary to enhance value propositions, talent readiness, and organizational resilience, it will also take a shared understanding of digitalization, a data-driven vision, and the right people.

Once the right people are in place, those looking to catch up should benchmark themselves against their peers and Digital Champions. This will not only help to know where you stand among the competition but will also inform you where to invest your time, effort, and resources to maximize the value and performance of your digital transformation.