A new report from Accenture shows how industrial companies have found effective ways to scale their digital innovation efforts and receive a higher return on digital investment. However, of the 1,350 senior and C-suite executives surveyed that invest in innovation, only 22 percent of these companies, labeled “Champions,” reach expected earnings.
The best-performing companies show success with their proof of concepts, more so than their peers, through four specific strategies. Champions repeatedly define the value that guides innovation efforts, focus on external value and internal change, enable innovation in each business function, and build in-house innovation factories.
With a 50 plus percent success rate with proof of concepts, Champions expected a 22.3 percent Return on Digital Investment (RODI) but realized 25.5 percent, while companies that scale less, called Contenders, expected a return of 7.2 percent but realized only 6.4 percent.
A company’s ability to scale digital innovation is closely correlated to how it manages management, alignment, measurement of digital value, skills, technology infrastructure, management of partnerships, and company culture. Accenture details an econometric model and explains how a company can increase their RODI by improving these six aspects of a business.
“Successful digital reinvention can only be driven from within, with digital capabilities that sit inside the core functions of a business”, said Aidan Quilligan, managing director and global lead for Accenture Industry X.0. “Champions know this. They first pinpoint what their customers most value, and then build digital factories to bring the might of their entire organization behind delivering that very value. This is how they overcome the challenges to innovation that all companies are facing.”
