Digital transformation driving firms in next decade

By Wang Junwei | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2019-09-12 17:18

Kitty Fok, IDC China managing director, delivers a speech at a conference in Beijing, Sept 11, 2019. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Digital transformation has become the main theme among all companies in the next 10 years, according to a news conference from market research firm International Data Corporation (IDC) on Thursday.

Over 70 percent of China's top 1,000 major companies have taken digital transformation as their strategic core as of 2018, and 65 percent of China's GDP will be related to data by 2022, while world's GDP connected to data will reach 60 percent, as per research from IDC.

Chinese enterprises seek a comprehensive digital transformation, which has extended to information and data, customer experience, work resources and more. "Just like the words from a CEO, digital transformation doesn't promise success, but doing nothing is bound to lead to failure," said Kitty Fok, IDC China managing director.

More than 40 percent of China's enterprises have become firm supporters in going digital, but the digital transformation still faces many challenges, Kitty said.

Obsolete assessment systems, isolated organizational structures, shortsighted tactical planning, limited experience and skills, and insufficient innovation collaboration are the common problems during the transformation drive globally, according to Kitty. In China, companies face unique challenges such as cognitive deviation, unclear stages of development, insufficient budgets and value assessment difficulty.

The digital transformation of Chinese enterprises has shown four new characteristics, Kitty added, namely increasingly valued data and intelligence; growing importance of the middle-end (a platform to connect the front-end and back-end of a company) and ecology; software and hardware integration for new business models; and more mature digital transformation.

IDC also released lists of awards for individuals, companies and institutions in China which have taken the lead in digital transformation. Fifty-five outstanding projects and 16 annual figures won the excellence award of 2019 IDC China Digital Transformation Awards this year.