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Study: Committing to digital dramatically boosts odds of gaining market share

December 12, 2016

Bain & Co. and Red Hat, a provider of open source solutions, have released the results of research aimed at gauging the correlation between an organization's commitment to digital and the benefits that flow from it.

The research report, "For Traditional Enterprises, the Path to Digital and the Role of Containers," surveyed nearly 450 U.S. executives, IT leaders and IT personnel across industries.

The survey found organizations using new technologies for digital transformation are:

• eight times more likely to have grown their market share, compared with organizations in the earliest stages of digital transformation;
• three times faster at delivering better products in a more timely fashion through increased adoption of emerging technologies;
• achieving more streamlined development processes, more flexible infrastructure, faster time to market and reduced costs through application development that uses "containers" — i.e., self-contained environments that allow users to package applications with all files necessary to scale and run across multiple environments, including public and private clouds.

However, the research revealed, while 63 percent of enterprises surveyed have built processes to respond to digital trends, only 19 percent see rapid innovation as a priority. Additionally, moves made by competitors are the primary motivator behind digital efforts by approximately 65 percent of survey respondents, highlighting a highly reactive approach to digital transformation.

"We see many traditional enterprise companies still trailing on measures of digital maturity, even among the most advanced firms," said Jeff Taylor, a partner in Bain's Technology Practice and co-author of the report. "[T]hose advancing further and faster on the adoption curve treat digital as more than just a singular function or activity. They view it as a comprehensive, cross-functional transformation."

Taylor also said building sufficient digital capabilities to generate the desired results "is not a straightforward journey. Success requires a sustained multiyear focus."