“Every business will become a software business,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told his company’s annual Convergence Conference.
That was in 2015 and, in typical digital speed, much has happened since then. Amazon delivered a package by drone. SpaceX landed a rocket vertically in the ocean. Artificial Intelligence, digital storage and hyper-speed mass transportation all lept forward.
Recent research from Harvard Business Review Analytic Services in partnership with Microsoft reports 84 percent of respondents have either already had their industry disrupted by digital trends or will by 2020. In less than three years, nearly half believe their traditional business model will be obsolete. Yet, most organizations are still forming digital strategies. According to The Case for Digital Reinvention, a report by McKinsey, less than 40 percent of industries are digitized. The race has really just begun.
“The most successful companies will not only have access to data – market, customer, operational – but they’ll derive unique, actionable insights from that data to help them better serve customers, improve business operations and transcend current business models,” says Rimes Mortimer, general manager of applied innovation at Microsoft.
As leaders accelerate the digital transformation of their organizations, those who want to compete are rethinking the role of the information technology (IT) team, and fostering a new set of skills and behaviors. Companies are looking to build a degree of agility, creativity and responsiveness not previously demanded.