Companies that scale digital innovation reap rewards
Accenture has released its new Industry X.0 research, revealing that best-performing businesses scale more than half of their proofs of concept and achieve higher-than-average returns on their efforts compared to their peers.
Accenture surveyed 1,350 senior and C-suite executives from industrial businesses across 13 industries, representing both discrete and process manufacturing.
According to Accenture, large industrial companies need to deploy digital technologies to support innovation for not only existing and new operations but also for the products and services they develop. Yet, the company asserts, only a select few industrial companies manage to get the return they expect on digital investments.
To find out why, Accenture says, it focused on what it identified as a critical transitional phase for large, innovative organizations—when and how they move from a successful digital proof of concept (PoC ) to scaling that pilot for growth and profit.
According to its research, 22% of industrial companies surveyed (called “Champions”) were able to achieve a return on their digital investments (RODI) that exceeded their expectations.
The findings show that these companies approach the organizational challenges associated with innovation differently from their peers because they are more strategic, identifying the value they want to achieve and recognizing how their innovation efforts will affect their organization.
The new research also identifies the four characteristics driving the success of “Champions”:
- The ability to define the value that will guide innovation efforts
- The ability to focus on external value and internal change
- Enablement of innovation in each business function
- The practice of building in-house innovation factories
The research summary is available from Accenture at www.accenture.com/gb-en/insights/industry-x-0/scaling-digital.