Digital investments as a percentage of revenue higher for Indian firms than global average, says PwC survey

Digital technologies are impacting industries and businesses alike. New-age start-ups are changing the market dynamics with digital technologies pushing the boundaries to either innovate or perish. Keeping this in mind, businesses across the world are ramping up their digital investments.Creating better customer experience and growing revenues are the key expectations from a company’s digital investments.

According to PwC’s seventh Digital IQ Survey, Indian companies are focusing their digital investments on marketing (36% in India vs. 27% globally) and IT (37% in India vs. 32% globally) and less on operations and customer experience. The global average spend on customer experience is higher (7% in India vs. 12% globally).

Arnab Basu, Partner- Technology Consulting and Digital, PwC India said, “Digital refers to the new way of doing business that allows enterprises to engage more effectively with their stakeholders, fine-tune their operational effectiveness and strengthen risk management strategies. Enterprises will have to develop a comprehensive digital strategy and re-imagine their traditional business models which are getting disrupted in order to become a true digital business. It is equally important for enterprises to integrate digital into the fabric of their corporate culture”

The India cut of PwC’s seventh Digital IQ Survey reveals that companies with high Digital IQ scores are twice as likely to achieve rapid revenue and profit growth compared with the laggards. Some of the key highlights from the report include:

Business –aligned digital strategy is shared at the C-Suite level: Most companies globally are primarily adopting a technology-driven approach towards adoption of digital technologies rather than a business-driven approach. This is particularly true for the US where 18% of digital adoption is driven through business vis-à-vis 66% through technology. However, their Indian counterparts are giving equal importance to technology (43%) and business (42%)

CEO is the champion and Digital leaders are involved in business strategy: In over 43% of Indian enterprises, the CEO is championing the digital strategy, which is lower than the global average. More than half of the respondents in India (59%) said that the CIO’s chief responsibility is to lead all digital investments and efforts, including innovation and market-facing initiatives, versus 40% globally. However, 41% of Indian respondents suggested that in three years’ time, the CIO may be tasked with only internal IT efforts with limited influence over digital investments. This is in alignment with the global trend of the appointment of a Chief Digital Officer.

Engaging with external sources to gather new ideas: In India, 68% of executives said that they rely on industry analysts as sources for applying emerging technologies in new ways to solve business problems (globally, 63%). Fifty four per cent point to competitive intelligence as a source for gathering ideas for innovation (globally, 44%), and 51% rely on customer advisory groups and surveys (globally, 52%).

Effective use of data to drive value: Value-added data from third-party sources (71% vs. 69% globally) tops the list followed by mobile customer interaction data (65%) and location-aware data (64%), which are the key sources of data being harnessed by Indian companies, apart from social media, Internet of Things (IoT) and Cloud applications.

Barriers for Digital Adoption: Majority of companies in India (81%) claim outdated technologies as an obstacle to achieving the desired results from digital initiatives, as opposed to 67% globally. In India, 79% view lack of properly skilled teams as a barrier (globally- 70%) and 79% believe that integration of new and existing technologies is an obstacle (globally- 73%).