A recent study from Oxford Economics and Accenture (Digital Density Index) looks at how digital technologies can be used to unlock faster economic growth. According to the study, The Netherlands lead in Digital Transformation and The UK ranks second.
Another recent study from Oxford Economics and SAP SuccessFactors (Leaders 2020) shows a different view. This study looks at which and how many companies can label themselves as digital winners. “Digital Winners are high-functioning organizations with executives who communicate a company- wide digital strategy, keep management and worker skills up to date, and streamline organizational structure.” In the study only 16% of the companies qualify as a digital winner. In Germany 2 out of 5 companies embrace digital transformation whilst in the UK only 1 out of 100 companies do so. The Netherlands were not included in this research.
Research from the EU ranks the Netherlands as one of the most digitized countries in Europe. Mixed results from various resources. Where does that leave us?
Before we move to a digital economy companies need to go through a digital transformation process. Digital transformation is enabled by social, mobile, analytics and the cloud and is about digitizing products, and processes. Because of the increasing speed at which this transformation is occurring, the shelf life of business models is shortening resulting in digital disruption and changing customer behaviour.
Major vendors are creating a fair amount of buzz in the digital transformation space, not only global, but also in the Netherlands. SAP for example reported various Digital Transformation initiatives like Nationale Nederlanden and Ordina, but also Strukton and SUEZ. Vebego International won SAP’s Quality Award for Business Transformation. Tata Communication will support Air-France-KLM’s growth strategy which is driven by an organisation-wide digital transformation. Unilever announced a new role: VP Digital Transformation. Cisco recently launched its DVN initiative and Philips Health Tech won Computable’s Digital Innovation Award.
Though we do see plenty announcements of digitized workplaces and processes, we lack examples of companies that have changed or reinvented their existing processes into new (digital) business models. We would like to get your views on this topic, so we can fine-tune our research efforts to give you the answer in 2017.
If you would like to read more of our views on this topic, please check our Digital Economy Research Blogs:
Charting the Dutch Digital Economy Part X: Internet Economy Revisited
Charting the Dutch Digital Economy Part IX: Is There More?
Charting the Dutch Digital Economy Part VIII: C2C, The Elephant in the Room?
Charting the Dutch Digital Economy Part VII: Why B2B e-Commerce Is So Big
Charting the Dutch Digital Economy Part VI: Why E-Commerce Seems So Small
Charting the Digital Economy Part V: The Dutch Digital Footprint
Charting the Digital Economy Part III: Digital Value Add of Economic Activity
Charting the Digital Economy: Part II
