Digital Transformations Dogged by Lack of Leadership

While companies are talking a big game in regards to their digital transformations, only half of them have been successfully executing on their strategies, according to a recent survey.

Wipro Digital, which surveyed 400 senior-level US executives about their digital transformation strategies, laid the blame for the lack of follow-through squarely at the feet of organizational leadership.

"Digital transformation efforts are coming up short on intended ROI, in part because digital transformation is as much a leadership issue as it is a strategy, technology, culture and talent issue," said Rajan Kohli, senior vice president and global head of Wipro Digital, in a prepared statement. "Real digital transformation occurs when courageous leaders align goals in practice as well as theory, manage opportunity more than risk and prioritize the future vs. retrofit the present."

The report also showed that while 91% of the executives were in agreement on the definition of "digital transformation," only 4% realized half of their digital investment in less than one year. The majority of the respondents said it that it has taken their organizations two to three years to see at last half of there investments reach fruition.

The lack of a clear digital transformation strategy was cited by 35% of the executives as a key barrier to achieving their full digital potential. Despite the investments being made in digital transformations, nearly one in five of the senior execs copped to secretly believing that digital transformation projects in their companies were a waste of time.

While CEOs, CTOs and CIOs were the most likely executives to be the primary drivers for digital transformation strategies, there is still a lot of organizational resistance. Feeling overwhelmed by digital complexities (40%) and trepidation over new ways of working (39%) were the top two obstacles that prevented companies from reaching their digital potentials.

Operations and IT departments were listed as the leading beneficiaries of digital transformation strategies, and combined with "procurement and finance" were cited by 60% of the executives as reaping the most benefits. Less likely to benefit from digital migrations were departments such as product development (15%), marketing (13%) and sales (10%).

While they weren't mentioned in this report, communication service providers (CSPs) are undergoing their own digital transformations, which makes them well positioned to apply some of the lessons they've learned to their own customers' migrations.

— Mike Robuck, Editor, Telco Transformation