Software AG Unveils Digital Assessment for Businesses

Software AG (Frankfurt TecDAX: SOW) today unveiled its Digital Assessment Tool at its Innovation World Tour: Digital Business Days conference in New York City. With the online tool, users can easily and quickly assess their organization’s readiness for digital transformation. Findings will compare companies’ digital progress to other organizations throughout industries. After users take the assessment, access will be given to an October 2016 Forrester Consulting Thought Leadership Paper commissioned by Software AG, Energize Your Digital Transformation: Seven Disciplines To Support Successful Digital Strategy.

The Forrester Consulting study[1] specifically focuses on how IT teams prioritize and optimize seven specific disciplines to enable their strategies. In conducting in-depth surveys with 223 IT professionals, Forrester found that these seven disciplines positively correlate with many elements of success—from digital readiness and vision, to high revenue growth. Some key findings from this study include:

• 75% of manufacturers say a digital customer experience is a high or critical priority, but only 25% are optimized to respond in real-time to risks and opportunities associated with digital customer experiences;
• 67% of retailers say business operations’ efficiency is a high or critical priority, and yet a mere 17% are optimized to derive insights from massive amounts of data in real time and scaling to manage peak data requirements
• 64% of banks say optimizing their branch network comms is a high or critical priority, but only 19% are optimizing the coordinated control, automation, and orchestration of the multiple processes branch networks require.

Organizations are embracing transformation in an effort to evolve into digital businesses. However, poor integration of technology, people and processes are hindering digital transformation efforts. The Forrester Consulting study found that IT organizations are finding it difficult to juggle their transformation priorities. In fact, nearly one third of respondents cite that balancing competing priorities is a challenge they must overcome with their digital strategies. Forrester Consulting also uncovered a disconnect between businesses understanding what it takes to transform versus actual transformation readiness. Furthermore, 52% of companies with a digital strategy grew revenues more than five percent year-on-year. 

Based on its own extensive research and experience with customers, Software AG believes that successful pioneers of digital transformation are guided by seven critical disciplines:

1. Transformation – streamlined processes orchestrated across multiple systems
2. Integration – consistent connectivity across all IT operations
3. Data – accounting for expanding data models across myriad systems
4. Visibility – a real-time understanding of the entire business that enables quick response to challenges and opportunities
5. Applications – controlling and automating processes that span multiple applications and systems
6. Scalability – leveraging big data for business benefits with processes that are driven by sophisticated analytics
7. Connectivity – easily sharing data both internally and externally in order to improve overall efficiency

Using Software AG’s Digital Assessment Tool, organizations can identify which of the seven disciplines they must focus on to achieve their digital transformation goals. The tool makes it simple to streamline competing priorities and provides a clear roadmap to follow and recommended solutions for IT to use on their digital transformation journey.

Wolfram Jost, CTO, Software AG, said: “In order to undertake a successful digital transformation, organizations must focus on seven key disciplines. Using aids like our Digital Assessment Tool can help organizations along their journey by providing customized recommendations and a clear vision for the future.”

Software AG’s Digital Assessment Tool is free and currently available here: http://digital.softwareag.com/.