Fresh research from Gartner says organisations need to digitalise their operations in order to stay competitive and survive; a new Australian digital sandpit could show them how...
What is being described as Australia’s first Digital Transformation Lab has been unveiled by Capgemini Australia in association with the University of Sydney Business School. The Lab will develop and deliver tools and frameworks for Australian businesses to use as they embark on transformation initiatives, and also research how digital innovations might be harnessed by enterprises in different verticals.
Technology analyst Gartner this week released a report warning that many organisations will have to radically rework their business models in 2014 in order to keep costs in check and respond to rising customer expectations. It’s not the first warning of the urgent need for reform – Deloitte’s Digital Disruption: short fuse, big bang? last year identified vertical sectors whose business models were under threat, while in August the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research released an IBM sponsored report which again stressed the need for digital transformation in most sectors.
According to Paul Thornley, Capgemini Australia’s chief executive officer, the economics of digital transformation are compelling. He says research shows that those “organisations that are mature in their digital transformation journey are 26 percent more profitable than their industry competitors”.
The Digital Transformation Lab will look at how enterprise social networks, mobile applications, social commerce and the like are impacting different industry sectors in Australia taking into account the nation’s unique geographic and technical characteristics. According to Ben Gilchriest, head of digital transformation for Capgemini, the Lab is intended as a multi-year joint research partnership that will match Capgemini’s market experience with the business school’s academic rigour and over time produce joint publications which will provide digital transformation insight to industry.
He declined to reveal how much would be invested on the initiative.
While Capgemini will initially focus the Lab’s attention on the way digital transformation will impact the retail sector – identified as a sector in most need according to Gilchriest, there are other local initiatives underway looking at how technology can be harnessed to reform other sectors. NICTA for example is home to a logistics focused centre developed in association with Fraunhofer which offers companies the chance to study the impact of technology on local and global supply chains.
