Five behaviours that can boost your company’s performance

Though many organizations lay claim to being a digital enterprise, only a minority — 20 per cent — are truly there, according to the 6th Annual Digital IQ Survey report released by PwC. In the report, PwC explores organizations’ ability to understand, value, and weave technology throughout the enterprise — their Digital IQ. 

In this year’s study of nearly 1,500 executives — split equally among business and IT executives — PwC has identified the actions and investments that are integral in high-performing digital enterprises today. 

Companies that demonstrate these five digital behaviours are more than twice as likely to be top-performing companies in revenue growth, profitability, and innovation. 

Garth Calow, advisory leader, PwC Bermuda, said: “With digital at the top of the agenda for nearly every company, the question now becomes: ‘How do we use digital technology to improve products and services, create new ones, or change our business models to stay ahead in competitive markets?’ 

Through all of our research, CEOs have made it clear that they see both the promise and peril of digital technology; and we believe that charting their company’s course in the digital age is the number-one challenge business leaders will face in 2014.” 

Chris Curran, PwC advisory principal and chief technologist, added: “Today, all roads lead to digital. From business strategy to execution, digital technology has become the foundation for everything we do. Simply put, you can’t afford to underestimate digital.” 

Which emerging technologies are in play? When it comes to which technologies they are betting on, all companies in our study agreed that the following were of the most strategic importance in three to five years: 

• Mobile customer technology. 

• Private cloud. 

• Data mining and analysis. 

• Externally-focused social media. 

• Cybersecurity 

At the other end of the spectrum, these emerging technologies ranked lower in terms of strategic value: gamification, NoSQL databases, and wearable computing. 

Our survey found that if you want to boost your company’s performance, raise your Digital IQ by developing these five behaviours: 

Behaviour 1: CEO actively champions digital. 

A digital CEO sets and steers the company’s digital vision and tackles the inevitable challenges that come with new ways of doing business. 

PwC’s analysis reveals that 81 per cent of top performers say their CEO is an active champion in the use of IT to achieve business strategy, compared with 68 per cent of other companies. For every strategic question, the CEO must ask: what are the digital opportunities here? 

Behaviour 2: Strong CIO-CMO relationship 

According to the survey, the relationship between the chief information officer (CIO) and the chief marketing officer (CMO) has become critical: 70 per cent of top-performing companies say they have a strong CIO-CMO relationship, compared with just 45 per cent for non-top performers. 

The CIO continues to be internally focused and there has been virtually no change in involvement around customer and product innovation during the last six years. 

 Behaviour 3: Outside-in approach to digital innovation. 

Top performers in PwC’s study are more likely to look to outside sources such as industry analysts, vendors, universities and labs to fill their idea pipelines, in addition to internal sources. But all companies tend to rely most heavily on traditional sources like internal planning sessions and workshops. 

Behaviour 4: Significant New IT platform investments .

While investing in disruptive technology is crucial for innovation, top-performing companies realize they need to think bigger. They are innovating how they think about IT and remaking it to better meet the needs of the business. 

PwC refers to this model as the New IT Platform — a thorough approach, addressing how IT’s mandate, processes, architecture and organisation must change to keep up with the business. 

Behaviour 5: View digital as an enterprise capability.

 PwC suggests organisations should begin broadening how they think about their digitally-savvy resources, realising that it is becoming essential to have an IT capability that is woven throughout the business rather than only centralised in a single function.