Article
Are you digital-ready?

Are you digital-ready?

May 20, 2016

  • The Internet of Things, Digital Disruption, Big Data – all of these are linked to one global megatrend that currently shapes our economic future more than anything: the digitization.

The awareness to become digital-ready has grown in nearly all industries. But the step from awareness to execution is a big one. That is the finding of our latest research and that has been confirmed in a joint workshop by Roland Berger and the Big Data experts of blue yonder in Munich recently.

Low digital maturity

“European industry leaders feel a high level of frustration for not being able to execute digital strategies,” the COO of a leading digital company told us.

Figures from our joint study with the BDI on the digital transformation of industry (download below) confirmed this statement: 45% of German industry decision-makers have not examined the implications of digitization in sufficient detail. Two-thirds of the companies consider their digital maturity to range from low to moderate.

From left: Jörg Seufert, Dr. Jochen Ditsche (both Roland Berger), Uwe Weiss and Prof. Michael Feindt (both blue yonder)
From left: Jörg Seufert, Dr. Jochen Ditsche (both Roland Berger), Uwe Weiss and Prof. Michael Feindt (both blue yonder)

Five major obstacles to the digital future

"For us, it is completely unclear how to execute the various change towards digitization in the current culture of our company."

Manager of a German automotive supplier

The workshop participants in Munich validated this picture: “For us, it is completely unclear, how to execute the various change towards digitization in the current culture of our company,” said a manager of a German automotive supplier. A participant from a DAX corporation added: “We have set up teams for the digital change. We have management attention. But the culture in our organization is so slow.” Besides the cultural deficits, the staffing is an issue in many companies: “We see unlimited digital use cases. But we lack the people,” the CIO of a mobility provider said.

Based on our assessment and the feedback from the workshop, the ability of organizations to execute digitization is limited by five major obstacles – all of them closely related to culture and staffing:

  • Organizational silos
  • Risk adversity
  • Inflexible processes
  • Lacking skill set
  • Lacking speed

Digital innovation Market consolidation Regulation Workforce Business climate Other

What are the key reasons for required restructuring measures?

Key questions for digital change

Companies need to address three key questions in order to make their organizations digital-ready:

  1. Will digital be an integration, addition or substitution of your current business?
  2. Related to digital maturity: Is your organization preparing, integrating or fully enabling digital transformation?
  3. How can necessary changes be derived? Think about the required structure, processes and culture (ideally a “fail fast, fail early” understanding of innovation).

Two-thirds of the companies consider their digital maturity to range from low to moderate.
Two-thirds of the companies consider their digital maturity to range from low to moderate.

It's all about organizational readiness

The summary of the workshop: Many industry players in Germany – big as well as smaller ones – have not addressed these issues and are “sitting on the fence”.

Despite a general understanding of the importance of digitization (see graphic), and despite first steps such as the setup of digital think tanks or reporting lines they lack the basis for successful execution: the organizational readiness based on leadership capabilities, distinct strategy and feasible goals.

We look forward to working on these challenges in further workshops and, above all, in the Digital Hub, Roland Berger has opened in Berlin.

  • Photo Credits: Daniel Ingold / Getty Images; Tom Merton / Getty Images

blue background
Study

The digital transformation industry

{[downloads[language].preview]}

This is the first study to scrutinize implications of the digital transformation with regard to the "industrial heart" of Germany and Europe.

Published March 2015. Available in