Survey about the Status Quo of Digitalization

The Survey
How far along are German companies with the implementation of the digital transformation and what challenges do they encounter in the process?

This was the topic of the survey on the status quo of digitalization that valantic conducted in cooperation with the Services and Consulting Department of the Hochschule Ludwigshafen am Rhein. Visitors were surveyed at DMEXCO in Cologne and the DSAG annual congress in Bremen. The focus was on four areas: digital customer experience, digitalized services, digital business models, and digital workplaces.

The results: Digital customer experience is foremost
The survey showed that digital customer experience is the most digitalized area at companies. At approximately 70% of the companies, there are ongoing pilot projects or large or completed projects. In the area of digitalized services and digital business models, the companies are generally in the implementation or completion phase.
The greatest development potential is in digital workplaces. Here, 18% of the companies stated that they have not yet taken any actions.
For the comprehensive analysis of digitalization across all four areas, the majority of the companies surveyed demonstrated a middling degree of digitalization; they already have their first projects underway in at least three areas. More than one-third of the companies are only somewhat digitalized, since previously they have undertaken no digitalization activities or they have only approved initial concepts.

Small Companies are out in front
With distinction by company size, it emerged that small companies with fewer than 100 employees are more advanced with respect to digitalization than medium-sized or large companies. Most of these are in the planning or implementation phase.

There is no overall concept
The three most frequently named digitalization challenges are a lacking overall concept, a different understanding and company-political obstacles. With values between 36% and 43%, these aspects are close together as digitalization obstacles. The value potential of the digital transformation was recognized by most companies and is only an obstacle for one-quarter of those surveyed.

The responsibility lies with the CEO
The responsibility for a company’s digitalization is borne by the CEO at more than one-third of the companies, which underscores the significance of this topic. Other important positions were the COO and the CIO. At small companies with up to 100 employees and medium-sized companies with up to 500 employees, responsibility is frequently not clearly defined. However, this does not impede the implementation of digitalization.