Digital transformation trends in 2024
I’m a baby boomer and, as someone knee-deep in the B2B technology industry since my mother’s Amstrad computer nibbled at my curiosity, it’s hard to ignore the mighty topic of digital transformation.
Step back a decade and digital transformation was the answer to everything. No surprises there. The last ten years have seen the maturing of many new and exciting technologies, from cloud computing, IOT, blockchain, and big data to 3D printing, and artificial intelligence platforms like ChatGPT and the metaverse. Inevitably, there has to be a term that covers the adoption of ‘all this digital tech stuff’ into the business world. Digital transformation is it.
Nevertheless, I’ve been curious for some time as to whether the topic of digital transformation has lost its luster. You see, digital transformation was never meant to describe a simple migration from analog to digital processing methods (that was happening anyway). No, it was to herald a new kind of future — where businesses mapped their digital transformation journey strategically, and embraced digital technologies to reinvent business models, customer value, and market opportunity.
Here we are in 2024. Has digital transformation grown old? And if not, what digital transformation strategies should companies be thinking about?
In truth, the same opportunities and challenges facing digital leaders in 2024 haven’t moved on since 2023. And here’s proof. This is a report I produced last year and it’s as relevant today as it was then!
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The 2023 Special Report on Digital Transformation Implementation
We interviewed 10 of the top thinkers in digital to track the key digital transformation trends and asked the question, to what extent digital is transforming the world of business and business models. Read the full report here.
The key topics that our digital experts wanted to talk about:
- What digital transformation means in 2023
- The importance of digital customer journeys
- Customer data platform solutions and data decoupling
- Cloud computing
- Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning:
- Re-focusing digital transformation leadership toward strategic initiatives
- Applying digital technologies to win communities
- Digital transformation RoI
- The increased importance of over-communication
- The changing relationship between digital transformation and people
Applying digital technologies to win communities:
Our 2023 expert digital strategy panel included:
(From top left to bottom right)
1. Julian Graham-Rack, Chief Executive Officer, PrinSIX
2. Mayank Jain, Head of Digital Transformation, USTech Solutions, Inc.
3. Andrew Lawrie, Chief Technology Officer, Workspend, Inc.
4. Sid Vasili, Founder & CEO, Vasili Associates, ChatReact Ltd
5. Bilal Itani, Chief Executive Officer, ModularCx
6. Nick Lawrie, Chief Executive Officer, NDMC Consulting
7. Suresh Gupta, Chief Solution Architect, Simplify Workforce, Inc.
8. Scott A. Aicher, Chief Operating Officer, USTech Solutions, Inc.
9. Nigel Garner, Managing Consultant, Nimble Approach
10. Chris Jones, Joint Chief Executive, Francis North Group
What are the top 5 digital transformation trends?
The latest developments in digital transformation include hybrid work, intelligent search AI/AI/AIOps and Robotic Process Automation to drive business processes, customer data platform solutions (CDPs) to drive customer value and experience, integrated Agile DevOps to drive innovation, and IT Service Management. Artificial Intelligence & Machine learning is becoming increasingly important for businesses and the digitization of businesses worldwide. AI is set to grow by 49% by 2025.
What our experts have to say…
On what digital transformation means:
Julian Graham-Rack is Chief Executive Officer of the FinTech Digital Transformation Platform company, PrinSIX Ltd. His company supplies a ready-to-deploy platform to augment customer journeys in financial services, utilities and consumer finance industries.
‘In the past, Digital Transformation has been dominated by technical change programs to remove legacy system silos and replace them with far more open architecture solutions. This is certainly transformative, but it is not digital transformation. True digital transformation is not technical, it’s about creating a digital culture. It begins with the customer. It is an obsession with making every journey as simply and easily as possible for the customer and as efficient as possible for the business. Technical change programs don’t do that. They are expensive and slow, so the scope is always contained, compromising customer and operational experience. Backlogs of deferred initiatives grow, few ever get to the top of the queue. This is what must change. Digital transformation in 2023 must become a business-led change to a digital culture. It is a perpetual process of improvement and optimization. It cannot be dependent on technical re-architecture. The tools now exist to achieve this outside of IT, where the business controls the orchestration of truly transforming their digital relationship with their customers across all internal and external systems.’
Nigel Garner, Managing Consultant at Nimble Approach thinks the topic of digital transformation is itself experiencing an evolution.
‘Digital transformation continues to mature as deeper consequential understanding develops and the changing geopolitical and economic landscapes apply pressure to digital organizations. Previously Customer Experience (CX) was king, with secondary focuses on Data, Cloud and Mobility, however these have now very much come to the forefront in a more considered and significant manner. The result is a much deeper understanding around the consequences of historical and future decisions; ethically, environmentally, legally, and financially.’
On digital customer journeys:
Bilal Itani is a Co-Founder of ModularCX, a 3D technology company that’s redefining customer journeys and experiences at the point of sale.
‘The rise of e-commerce has forced premium and luxury brands to re-evaluate their digital strategies in order to stay competitive. One trend that has been gaining popularity among these brands is the use of 3D e-commerce technology. It bridges the gap between online and in-store shopping experiences.’
A study by the Virtual Reality Society found that customers who interacted with a product in a virtual reality environment were more likely to make a purchase, with an increased likelihood of up to 80% compared to traditional 2D e-commerce technologies.
Itani adds, ‘With 3D e-commerce, customers can interact with products in a more realistic and engaging way. By providing a 3D representation of a product, customers can see products from all angles, zoom in and out, and make customizations to their liking. Gucci, Louis Vuitton and Prada, are already showcasing products online in 3D today.’
On Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning:
Suresh Gupta is Chief Solution Architect for Simplify Workforce, the Workforce Management Software company. In the past decade, Gupta has pioneered the evolution of Talent Portals and Vendor Management Systems to their new stature as an answer to External Workforce Management. In the last year, Simplify has worked with Microsoft and a group of leading blue chips to launch a Neurodiversity Connector portal that allows neurodiverse candidates to join the workforce on their terms. Gupta recognizes the appetite that exists for automation in 2023.
‘HR Tech is craving for disruption with Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) leading the way. While the opportunity for transformation exists, new tech tooling must be integrated deeply into existing client data and systems environments. Providers must nestle their solutions closer to native systems, integrating with existing interfaces and aligning with customer behaviors for simpler, faster adaption.’
Chris Jones, Joint Chief Executive of Francis North Group thinks:
‘Online businesses and companies with a higher degree of digital maturity are likely to consider embracing artificial intelligence into their processes to create a more seamless and tailored customer experience if they haven’t done so already. The skills shortage in technology is still rife across the industry and with continued pressures to reduce costs, offshoring to lower cost locations are likely to be a major consideration for technology leaders in 2023.’
On customer data platform solutions and decoupling data from IT systems:
Nick Lawrie is CEO of the Digital Transformation Consultancy, NDMC Ltd. As Regional CFO for the global medical technology company, Becton Dickinson, he pioneered Shared Service Centers and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) in the 1980s. For the past two decades, his company, NDMC Ltd, has specialized in enterprise technology implementation and business model re-design. Lawrie sees a substantive change in digital transformation change happening with the rise of what Gartner calls the move Composability. This, it describes as a business capability to reassemble data and applications building blocks from inside and outside the enterprise to meet new business challenges.
‘Digital has always been about data — accessing it, leveraging it to make decisions, bringing empowerment to customers, etc. This year, the IT industry is waking up to the importance of customer data platform solutions and decoupling the data they rely on from the systems that house it. Investing in data quality and accessibility has always been critical to Digital Transformation project success, but it’s taken a string of sub-optimal project results over the past decade to have the industry you cannot step around your data problem, you must tackle it head-on.’
Lawrie thinks finding digital solutions to ‘get data right’ will be central to data analytics strategies.
‘Creating a decoupled data fabric and democratizing usability of data must feature somewhere in the top 5 priorities if firms want to stay competitive.’
Graham-Rack thinks that’s right, and that storytelling with data forms a new digital culture. ‘Businesses can develop a granular understanding of their economic relationship with their customers, and how small changes can create significant value for customers and the business.
•They can identify areas in customer journeys that are barriers to serving customers and remove them.
•They can micro-segment their customer bases and treat each one differently.
•They can create management information frameworks that can measure the performance of every department to measure how customers are being serviced.
The opportunities to understand and improve are endless. This is not an extension of finance, but a completely new capability, which will require new skills in the business. Without these skills, businesses should not start a digital transformation process.’
On cloud computing:
Suresh Gupta says:
‘With the top IT brands like IBM, Microsoft, Amazon and Google having poured trillions of development dollars into perfecting their cloud tech over the last decade, Cloud-Native solutions are today in a mature state. Cloud technology architectures are now well-equipped with abstraction layers to negate coding to rapidly deploy solutions that painlessly adapt to client systems, data sources, and processes. Using AI/ML to analyze customer behavior and provide tailored experiences will be key for long-term customer engagement and satisfaction.’
Nigel Garner believes cloud adoption offers untapped cost economies for many late adopters.
‘Cloud adoption has the potential to offer significant savings to reduce operational costs with relatively easy returns on investment being achieved. Nevertheless, those adopting cloud computing in 2023 face greater financial due diligence with significant considerations being given to cost optimization, SRE and solution security. Growing awareness of initiatives such as Green Coding acknowledge respond to the reality that the cloud is not infinite and that the behavior and structure of digital systems can have a significant impact on their CO2 footprint. Data ethics policies, geographical data sharding and greater data residency analysis of SaaS solutions represent the growing awareness of the responsibility and evolving legal landscape of operating the complex data stores created under Digital Transformations. International organizations face a wave of new GDPR esq rules designed to protect citizens data which means platforms can no longer be seen as a global solution be ever increasingly need to respond to the localised legal data requirements.’
On applying digital technologies to win communities:
Sid Vasili is CEO of Vasili Advisory, and a Co-Founder of ChatReact — the company behind TwoMinuteReads.Com. ChatReact intends to fully outsource the activity of creating and winning communities for major brands and professional bodies. Vasili thinks that winning communities should be a front-of-mind digital priority for all company leadership teams in 2023.
‘Ask most business leaders why they attend events and they will say it’s to network with peers, pick up new ideas, and find answers to challenges. In contrast, people don’t like to be sold to. No sales conversation can begin unless a brand has some way of tapping into its audience. Many of these sales conversations take place online these days through digital touchpoints and, in such cases, suppliers need to be seen as experts and trusted advisors. The best way to do this is to bring value to communities where potential clients gather and share their experiences. We’re seeing the digital economy extend further into areas of community growth, value creation, and sponsorship to drive business outcomes. In some cases, the digital platforms of online social groups, professional bodies and third parties act as qualifying gatekeepers to communities. With market research and customer understanding being increasingly hard to source, tapping into active communities or building one yourself is going to be a strategic priority for many.’
Vasili believes that businesses need to start to seriously look at dedicated investments into digital solutions to facilitate community development.
‘Too many firms treat community engagement and development as an adjunct to their customer and partner marketing agenda. For this reason, digital initiatives for community development are often underprioritized. This is short-sighted. To be taken seriously by a community, a brand needs to invest in the digital platforms a community uses. Digital technology makes sponsorship of communities more possible, but only with a focused agenda.’
On re-focusing digital transformation leadership toward strategic initiatives:
Mayank Jain is Head of Digital Transformation at USTECH SOLUTIONS, a company that facilitates digital change through synergistic human capital partnerships. In the early days of the digital transformation evolution, Jain led pioneering digital customer experience solutions projects in Retail for IBM.
Jain believes businesses will shift toward a totalitarian definition of digital transformation, stealing a degree of power back from department heads.
‘Over the years we have seen components of digital technology being used by organizations to improve efficiency, increase agility, and stay competitive, as a result of which revenue is increased, costs are reduced, the customer experience is improved, and sometimes new business models are created. Recognizing the growing importance of data asset value and the need to be data-driven, we can expect a stronger play by central IT leaders to establish more thoughtful strategic plans to focus investments towards genuine digital transformations, shifting gear away from digitalization of processes.’
On digital transformation ROI:
Chris Jones says:
‘We are not expecting to see any radical shift to Digital Transformation agendas. Large corporations in the main are still grappling with reducing technical debt, introducing modern ways of working, cyber security and automation — a fairly substantial to-do list.’
On the increased importance of over-communicating project ambitions, progress, and results:
Chris Jones says:
‘The prospect of embracing new technologies and introducing automation can be exciting, but there are often cultural, capacity and capability challenges to be considered when it comes to innovating services for a business as usual environment. Alignment and regular communication between business and technology leadership is essential for a successful outcome.’
On the changing relationship between digital transformation and people:
Andrew Lawrie is CTO of Workspend, Inc. and was previously the computing pioneer behind Encanvas, the low code Platform-as-a-Service, and Digital Document software. Recognized as being in the top 10 of computer experts of our generation, he sees a rocky future for digital solutions unless leaders take the human factor more seriously.
‘The thing that is new is more about humans than technology. Suddenly, our society is waking up to the notable impacts of artificial intelligence and this broadening awareness is creating both curiosity and fear surrounding its impacts. Recently, a robot delivered testimony to a group of MPs in the UK’s Houses of Parliament. AI is biting at the heels of humans from all walks of life. In digital transformation projects, leaders will have to think hard about how they persuade humans to adopt leading-edge technologies like low code, AI and metaverse solutions. Users and stakeholders alike will want to be persuaded that adoption of technology is a good thing, both for themselves as individuals and for society.’
Scott A. Aicher (then) Chief Operating Officer at USTech Solutions, Inc. Scott says:
‘Every business in the world has plans to progress their digital agendas. This is not a one-time fix but a relentless march to embrace the next wave of tooling. Yesteryear it was AI/ML, this year perhaps Metaverse. Full-time employment has a limited role to play in a change agenda that transitions skillsets every 12 months. It’s perhaps no wonder that large enterprise clients are transitioning away from self-service agendas to facilitation partnerships with firms like ours with global reach and talent on tap through proprietary human capital databases that run into the many millions of pre-vetted, experienced STEM workers.’
Summary of digital transformation trends
In the future companies will employ a comprehensive enterprise approach leveraging data analytics and automated data analytics to generate insights, and in the future, the company is aiming at sustainability in its operations.
In 2023, digital transformation will be more about humans
This year promises to be more about people, and less about tools; i.e., how to find talent to facilitate change, how to sustain enthusiasm for constant change, and how to persuade users that digital innovation is good for them.
A new balance
Some core substrates of digital capability — i.e., To govern data and systems, present data and applications to workers in a useful format to democratize IT and bring data-driven decisioning behaviors to the enterprise — can only come from centralized IT systems architectures and leadership.
If these needs are to be met, strategists will have to find a new balance in IT spending.
Yes, automate, automate, automate — but don’t overbite on departmental project promises
The relentless onslaught of Artificial Intelligence — and its ability to drive cost savings and increase productivity — shows no signs of abating in 2023.
While we can all get lost in the low-hanging fruit promises of AI automation and bots, it’s not easy to balance these departmental automation needs into a common digital strategy.
When all projects need to be integrated with existing systems and processes, calls on internal data, internal systems, and IT staff resources will inevitably expose people resourcing bottlenecks that weren’t there last year.
About the author
Ian C. Tomlin is a management consultant and commentator on enterprise computing.
He has written books on topics of business agility (Agilization, 2007), the future societal and business impacts of social media and cloud computing (Cloud Coffee House , 2008), the rise of application platforms-as-a-service (Social Operating Systems, 2010) and secrets to creating an outstanding brand experience (Above and Beyond Brand). Founder and CEO of the growth engineering consultancy, Newton Day Ltd, and the digital publishing business, ChatReact Ltd, he also serves as Non-Executive Director for a string of technology and workforce businesses.
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About the Author
Ian Tomlin is a seasoned marketer, entrepreneur, and business leader with a 30+ year career at the intersection of strategy, technology, and marketing. As the founder of successful businesses, including Newton Day Ltd, Ian brings a wealth of expertise in guiding companies toward compelling brand stories. Reach out to Ian via LinkedIn to transform your marketing approach and tell your brand story effectively.
