The new imperative is to keep pace with business change while increasing the speed of business operations, the speed at which changes are delivered, and the speed and scale of innovation. 

The Race to Innovate – Speed of Change, Delivery, and Operations Separates Thrivers and Survivors

Understanding and building a “DX platform” that can sustain, advance, and scale business and operations may be the most important decisions leaders make for the next 10 years. 

Platforms, Platforms, Platforms – Industry Competes for Innovation at Scale

Data and intelligence represent a unique opportunity for creating unimaginable value. IoT, mobile devices, big data – combined with historical data, systems of record, and global information – continually sense an environment and put it into next contexts.

Sense, Compute, Actuate – Turning Data into Value

DX has changed organizations’ risk tolerances. More organized threats exploit vulnerable technologies that have larger attack surfaces. Regulations, publicity, fines, and costs force risk tolerances lower, requiring new thinking, priorities, and vigilance. 

New Nature of Risk – Innovation Requires New Thinking in Security and Risk Management

The past few years have been witness to unprecedented impacts of information. Automated bots spread targeted misinformation to achieve social engineering or nation-state goals beyond the ability of existing channels to control it. 

Global Information Crisis – Political, Social, and Economic Disturbance

Many future applications will be developed by AIs without human supervision. Beyond that, augmented humanity – the fusion of digital technologies and humans – for improved mobility, sensing and cognition will start to become routine. 

Emerging Autonomy – Learning to Live With AI

Consumers, citizens, and partners have lost faith in technology, creating a crisis of digital trust. Poor technology decisions, human error, or unidentified weaknesses can result in breaches that have a significant impact on businesses and customers.

Cyber Insecurity – Theft, Cyberattack, Negligence Create a Crisis of Digital Trust

New devices and interfaces, wearables, AR/VR, home automation, information and connectivity are combining to instill a belief that people can have what they want, when, where and how they want it, and at the same time, be in control of the data and their experience.

Rising Customer Expectations – More Convenience, Customization, and Control

New technologies are revolutionizing industrial processes and ushering a “golden age” of new materials. Nano Technology is driving “de-materialization” and the obsolescence of outmoded devices and processes, in a whole new world of products, production, and materials. 

Reimagining the Material World – Revolutionized Processes Expand Technology Reach

The future workspace will be a mix of physical and virtual. Work culture will be more collaborative, while the workforce will be a combination of people and machines working together. 

The Future of Work – Bridging the Digital Talent Gap

While new technologies are transforming aspects of the business, legacy systems are holding others back, limiting innovation, opportunity, and engagement. Companies in every sector are faced with balancing traditional and next-generation systems and technologies. 

Legacy Inertia – Retrofit the Old into the DX World

By 2022 2/3rds of all IT spending in Europe will be on 3rd platform technologies, as over 75% of European enterprises build “digital-native” IT environments to thrive in the digital economy.

From 2018 to 2023 — with new tools/platforms, more developers, agile methods, and lots of code reuse — nearly 100 million new logical apps will be created in Europe, equal to the applications built over the past 40 years.

By 2024, AI-enabled user interfaces and process automation will replace one-fifth of today’s screen-based apps; by 2022, 35% of European enterprises will use conversational speech tech for customer engagement.

By 2021, the CDO title will be in decline in Western Europe, as digital will have become fully embedded, but more than 50% of CEOs will have spent part of their careers leading digital initiatives.

By 2022, 30% of the top 500 European companies will have allocated capital budget equal to at least 10% of revenue to fuel their digital strategies.