Highly regarded business leaders through the decades have been praised for their gut instinct and intuition. However, in today’s world of Big Data and readily available analytics, executives worldwide have the opportunity to leverage more relevant insights to make the right call. New research from Oxford Economics shows that most are using data to drive decision-making, but there is room for improvement.
In the second quarter of 2016, Oxford Economics and SAP surveyed more than 4,100 executives and employees in 21 countries across various industries about their digital transformation. Most respondents said their business decisions could usually be mapped to company strategies (55 percent). The same share said decisions were normally driven by data. Forty-six percent of executives surveyed said their organization can adapt to judgments in real time.
“In the emerging digital economy, rapid change is a constant, as knowledge work matures into digital work, and decisions are driven by data and made in real time. Most companies are falling short on these fronts,” states the Oxford Economics report “Leaders 2020.”
Oxford Economics identified a set of characteristics and practices that define the best-managed companies — a group it calls Digital Winners. Only 16 percent of the companies surveyed qualified as Digital Winners. Characteristics shared by this group of high performers include:
· Embrace digital technologies — Embedding technology in all aspects of the organization
· Streamline decision making — Making data-driven decisions in real time
· Flatten the organization — Focusing on reducing complexity and bureaucracy
· Build a digital workforce — Emphasizing transformation readiness and strategic use of technology
What could be done better?
Only about half of executives and employees say leadership is proficient in managing a diverse workforce. Facilitating collaboration, making full use of technology, and motivating employees are also areas in need of improvement.
“The pace of change shows no sign of slowing down, and organizations that do not continually update their approach to leadership risk falling behind,” the report states. It offers these steps to becoming a “Digital Winner:”
Communicate a companywide digital vision. The best leaders not only have a strategy for going digital, they are sharing it with employees across the organization.
Continually update executive and employee skill sets. Everyone from the ground floor to the executive suite needs digital skills and the ability to learn new ones quickly.
Flatten the organization. Leadership needs to empower managers and workers across the enterprise to make decisions without bureaucratic bottlenecks.
Emphasize diversity. Companies that cultivate a diverse workforce and take a broad range of employee perspectives into account are better poised to succeed in a global economy – and to keep employees happy and engaged.
Listen to young executives. The growing cohort of millennial executives has a strong vision for leadership in the digital economy. Taking their advice may be a shortcut to digital transformation.
