Focus on Digital Technology and Analytics Increases Yet Companies Struggle to Achieve Potential Impact

Genpact research shows only small minority of operations leaders see strong results; key to success is holistic transformation approach, not only technology

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Genpact

Sep 15, 2015, 08:00 ET

NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Despite evidence of the revolutionary power of digital technology and analytics, and increasing investments in these areas, the vast majority of companies' operating leaders only see, at best, "some benefits" from their deployments, according to new research released today by Genpact (NYSE: G), the architect of the Lean Digital^SM enterprise, and polled by sharedserviceslink, the community for leaders in finance shared services.

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Only 26 percent of executives surveyed feel their analytics initiatives meet or exceed their expected business outcomes. Investments in digital technologies do not fare much better; just 31 percent say results meet or exceed expectations.

Interest remains strong: 71 percent of respondents state a high or extremely high emphasis on digital technologies to improve their business operations, with 64 percent reporting the same for analytics.

These results, based on opinions of leaders in charge of companies' operations, demonstrate that while the emphasis on digital transformation continues to grow, there are on-the-ground challenges including:

A lack of an aligned digital strategy for business operations

Business operations, middle and back office, receive little attention when organizations develop their digital strategies, which generates a significant risk of disconnect across the front-to-back office processes that have an impact on client service, compliance, and cost to deliver products and services. Companies need a more holistic approach to digital transformation that equally considers top management's ambitions and the experience of executives who run middle and back-office processes.

Less than a third of respondents (30 percent) say their organizations effectively align digital technology and analytics decisions to business outcomes.

Difficulty integrating legacy systems; managing change

Change management, a concern stressed by 36 percent of respondents, is as important as digital technology savviness in large organizations, where legacy processes and systems create barriers (the top challenge, as cited by 45 percent).

Poor communication between IT and business teams when implementing with digital transformation initiatives is an additional obstacle (30 percent).

Not having the right tools and talent

These technology deployment challenges also affect analytics initiatives, which struggle with a lack of business intelligence tools (cited by 33 percent of executives polled), access to talent (33 percent), as well as legacy processes and systems that do not capture the required data (30 percent).

Combined, digital technology and analytics challenges currently can hold back many enterprises from creating and running intelligent operations that sense, act, and learn from their actions.

The research illustrates how many companies do not fully benefit from the billions of dollars currently spent on digital initiatives.

"Our research underscores how the adoption of digital technologies and analytics, not unlike other disruptive technology inflections of the past, is hindered by many enterprises' ability to design and transform effectively," said Gianni Giacomelli, senior vice president and leader of the Genpact Research Institute. "We believe that this current wave is of unprecedented magnitude. Many companies, however, still do not realize that the issue is not just technology, but could be their own ability to reimagine the way they run and implement their vision."

The study was conducted on behalf of the Genpact Research Institute by sharedserviceslink. The web-based questionnaire explored the impact of digital technologies and analytics on business operations, surveying more than 100 large enterprises, of which 71 percent have annual revenues of over $1 billion. Responses from middle and senior executives in charge of business operations were compiled between March and July of 2015.

For more information, see the infographic report and http://www.genpact.com/leandigital.

About Genpact
Genpact (NYSE: G) stands for "generating business impact." We architect the Lean Digital^SM enterprise through a unique approach that reimagines our clients' middle and back offices to generate growth, cost efficiency, and business agility. Our hundreds of long-term clients include more than one-fourth of the Fortune Global 500. We have grown to over 70,000 people in 25 countries, with key management and a corporate office in New York City. We believe we are able to generate impact quickly and power Intelligent Operations^SM for our clients because of our business domain expertise and experience running complex operations, driving our unbiased focus on what works and making technology-enabled transformation sustainable. Behind our passion for technology, process, and operational excellence is the heritage of a former General Electric division that has served GE businesses since 1998. For additional information, visit www.genpact.com. Follow Genpact on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube.