Customers’ expectations, preferences, changing patterns in how and why they purchase need to be the core of any digital transformation effort. With it, digital transformation projects flourish and take on a life of their own. Without it, I’ve seen digital transformation projects become myopic, narrowly focused, substituting internal metric gains for measures that matter most to customers.
Anyone who has worked on a digital transformation project quickly sees how the most digitally mature organizations can turn their investments in transformation into revenue by overwhelming customers with value. Initiatives that put customers first can serve to generate greater confidence among C-level executives and board members, leading to more funding. This is because business cases for customer-centric digital transformation projects are easier to create, more defensible and best of all, point to revenue gains and cost reductions.
Deloitte Insights’ recent survey uncovering the connection between digital maturity and financial performance accurately reflects the true state of customer-centric digital transformation. The article explains how the more digitally mature an organization is, the more achievable gains are in diversity and inclusion, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), customer satisfaction, product quality, gross margin and long-term financial performance. Deloitte’s latest study finds a strong correlation between the digital maturity of an enterprise and its net revenue and net profit margin. The following graphic makes clear how valuable pursuing digital maturity is, with customers being at the center of all transformation efforts. This contributes to greater net revenue and net profit margin growth:
A fascinating point regarding Deloitte Insights’ research is the correlation it uncovered between an organization’s digital transformation maturity and the benefits they gain in efficiency, revenue growth, product/service quality, customer satisfaction and employee engagement. They found a hierarchy of pivots successful enterprises make to keep pursuing more agile, adaptive organizational structures combined with business model adaptability, all driven by customer-driven innovation. The most digitally mature organizations can adopt new frameworks that prioritize market responsiveness, customer-centricity and have analytics and data-driven culture with actionable insights embedded in their DNA.
Mastering Data & Removing Roadblocks Are Key To Driving Customer Value
The two highest-payoff areas for accelerating digital maturity and achieving its many benefits are mastering data and creating more intelligent workflows. Deloitte Insights’ research team looked at the seven most effective digital pivots enterprises can make to become more digitally mature. The pivots that paid off the best as measured by revenue, margin, customer satisfaction, product/service quality and employee engagement combined data mastery and improving intelligent workflows. The following graphic shows how 51% of revenue growth can be explained by these two factors alone and 49% of improved customer satisfaction.
