August 2022 | Signature Research

2022 Be Digital Research

Executives believe in the digital future. But can the people and organizations they lead deliver it?

Our survey of 700 C-suite executives and 5,000 consumers finds that companies have set a compelling vision for a digital-first future and have made strides to build a more agile approach to product development, data-driven decision-making, people strategy, and the overall operating model.

But to achieve the transformational results they’re looking for, there is still progress to be made in aligning with customer priorities and creating an organization of professionals with a true digital mindset.

Read the research to learn:

Where C-suite executives and their customers differ when it comes to customer experience priorities
The next big areas for digital investments
How consumers grade digital experiences with their banks, doctors, health insurance companies, and utilities

Download the research

It Takes All Areas of a Business to Become Digital

Executives are bought into the digital future, but face challenges in every area of their organization when bringing it to life

There are more than 5 billion recent search results for the term “digital.” What is digital? How do we do digital? How do we get buy-in for digital transformation? The questions are countless, and prior to 2020, the answers were synonymous with all the wrong things: high costs, long-term strategy, and roadblocks.

We believe there’s a better way. That digital isn’t something you do; it’s something you are. A mindset, not a destination. Because the goal isn’t just great technology and a seamless customer experience—it’s agility. It’s the acceptance that we can’t prepare for every outcome—but we can be nimble enough to respond strategically to any challenge or opportunity, large or small.

That’s why we recently polled 700 C-suite executives across the financial services, healthcare, health insurance, manufacturing, retail, technology, and utility industries, as well as 5,000 of their consumers. Our research benchmarks the path for organizations to a truly digital operating model and stress-tests assumptions about where they are investing vs. what actually matters to their customers.

West Monroe’s 2022 Be Digital Survey finds that organizations are well on their way to a digital future but still have opportunities to further enhance their vision, products, data, and people strategies—as well as the operational processes that connect them.

While the C-suite believes they’ve built a compelling vision for a digital operating model, even the best ideas can fall flat in execution. When it comes to bringing the digital vision to life, executives point to a number of lingering challenges, from quality of and access to data, to competing priorities, to challenges around building a coalition and ushering forth change.

Looking ahead, organizations will be investing to tackle these roadblocks—by enhancing their customer experience, bolstering insight from data, and powering process and organizational improvement that will drive agility, in addition to top- and bottom-line growth.