Digital Transformation on the Rise

Last December, I was preparing a session on digital transformation for our annual sales conference. It was really no surprise that this topic was in high demand, as digital transformation is top of mind for many — if not most — firms. In fact, IDC predicts digital transformation initiatives will more than double by 2020 from today’s 22 percent to almost 50 percent. This forecast seems reasonable. On any given day, I can find numerous articles focusing on digital transformation, and it is the topic of many conversations that I have with our clients. But as additional validation, I decided to ask our search team to research trends for the keyword “digital transformation.” The result below certainly provided further confirmation that the interest in this topic is on the upswing.

The objectives of digital transformation span a wide spectrum, including increased revenue, cost reduction, improved customer satisfaction, enhanced differentiation, and ultimately, mitigation of the risk of digital disruption. Firms are investing heavily in customer experience as a cornerstone of their digital transformation strategies. But what is the focus of these digital-transformation investments?

Digital Experiences Are the New IP (Intellectual Property)

Customer experience ranks as one of the top three investment areas in support of digital-transformation initiatives. A recent survey (Gartner) found that companies across a broad range of industries estimate they will spend 18 – 20 percent of their marketing budgets on customer-experience initiatives, and 89 percent of companies plan to compete primarily on the basis of customer experience by 2016 (rising from 36 percent in 2012). Moreover, organizations believe that investments in customer experience will enable them to differentiate themselves in often-crowded and hyper-competitive markets. Yes, customer experience is becoming the focus of meaningful and lasting differentiation. The focus on customer experiences is a reflection of the shift to an information economy, whereby, the importance of physical objects are diminished and intellectual or creative products gain in importance. Investments in customer experience can provide even greater lift for firms — that is, lasting differentiation. This is because great customer experiences are often difficult for others to copy, meaning that experiences are providing many of the benefits of intellectual property: protection from imitation.

The creation of compelling customer experiences is becoming table stakes in all industries, and there is a great opportunity to dig deep into the topic by joining us at Adobe Summit — which is NEXT week. This year, we have a fantastic lineup of tech companies that will be sharing their own digital-transformation stories and revealing how they are creating compelling customer experiences. Please register, if you have not done so already, and hear companies like EMC, CSC, VMware, NetApp, and Palo Alto Networks (to name a few) discuss best practices on topics like:

**Join us at Summit:
**March 20 – 24, 2016 | Venetian | Palazzo, Las Vegas, Nevada