As we move into 2015 with the buzz of the Consumer Electronics Show and the onslaught of new products and technologies, our eyes are on the future. This month, the percentage of people with psychic powers suddenly seems much higher as every news feed boasts their predictions for the year, but not many of these articles hold more weight than the content Gartner annually creates on the topic.
In their “Top 10 Strategic Predictions for 2015 and Beyond: Digital Business is Driving Big Change”, Gartner relays that it’s now imperative for many organizations to radically alter business processes by employing a digital business strategy in order to improve the customer experience and remain competitive. According to Gartner, “The customer experience may be the most impactful area of innovation available to businesses today. The customer has all the power today, and responding to that power effectively will bring great benefits.” Their research shows that 89% companies see customer experience as the main differentiator that will set them apart from their competition by 2016, as opposed to only 36% four years ago.
More and more often, increasingly tech-savvy customers are expecting fast self-service options to be available to them wherever and whenever they want, and without technology, that’s impossible to provide. To accommodate this, many organizations are creating a digital business strategy with “supermaneuverable” business processes that can be easily changed with customers’ needs. Gartner proposes that businesses will need to take a “bimodal approach” to building these processes, using half their team to run business as usual and the other to innovate new ways of business. By 2017, Gartner predicts that 70% of business will run on digital business models with variable processes.
In order to function at the speed necessary for future competitive business, organizations will need to employ the use of smart machines. These technologies will expand business process automation into new areas and even to some decision-making functions, which Gartner predicts will decrease the total cost of ownership for business operations by 30% by 2018. However, the new technology will also create a shortage of qualified digital professionals such as IoT Engineers, Data Scientists, and Process Automation Integrators needed to manage these initiatives. Gartner advises organizations with a digital business strategy (or plans for one) to begin assessing their future staffing needs as soon as possible and developing recruiting techniques so they can fill those gaps.
The coming years will certainly be interesting ones, with change happening more rapidly than ever before as new innovations are brought to market. Gartner’s predictions point to new worlds of possibilities from both business and consumer perspectives. All we can do is prepare ourselves, and get excited!
Still stuck in the muck of manual processes and need help? Check out our webinar recording below – “Conquering Contract Management in a Digital World.”
