Techaisle Blog

Midmarket firms that adopt a holistic organization-wide digital transformation strategy are growing at 2.2X vs. Siloed digital transformation strategy. They are also experiencing 2.1X business process cost reduction, 1.9X better customer intimacy and 1.4X improved employee productivity vs. Siloed adopters. Techaisle’s US midmarket digital transformation trends study shows that it pays to have an organization-wide, holistic digital transformation strategy. Survey of 876 US midmarket firms reveals that Holistic adopters are experiencing better business outcomes than Siloed adopters of digital transformation.

We are all responsible for the pace of change – and to ensuring that it benefits rather than threatens our success. Nowhere is this clearer than with digital transformation – the adoption of digital infrastructure as the foundation for digital business processes, which enhance operational efficiency, employee empowerment, product innovation, customer intimacy, competitiveness and profitability throughout the organization. Businesses that embrace digitalization are more agile, more adept at using technology to accelerate cycle time and expand reach, better able to respond to market opportunities and requirements – while those that are left behind face an uncertain future in which one wrong step can lead to diminished business viability.

Holistic, Inclusive, Siloed and In-the-Shadows are the four midmarket segments by digital transformation strategy as revealed in Techaisle’s US midmarket digital transformation trends survey & segmentation data. The segmentation reveals that overall, 41% of the US midmarket firms (100-999 employee size) are firm believers in digital transformation. They are leading digital transformation initiatives. These firms belong to the “Holistic” segment of the four different digital transformation segments. They believe that digital technologies impact every aspect of the business and are a core part of organizational strategy. Interestingly though, within the firms belonging to the holistic segment, digitization of process automation is far from complete. They still have a huge runway in front of them.

For 59% of the midmarket firms, digital transformation initiatives are sporadic and ad hoc or not critical across the entire business. These are the firms that belong to the Inclusive, Siloed and In-the-Shadows segments. They are the laggards in digital transformation journey.

Clearly there is vast untapped potential for firms offering digital transformation services to the midmarket businesses.

Although much of the public debate around mobility involves hardware brands and feature sets and overall penetration rates, the real business benefit of mobility is delivered via applications that address specific task requirements within the business, and mobility solutions that overlay the management and security structures needed to integrate these apps with corporate IT systems.

Data drawn from the Techaisle 2017 SMB & Midmarket Mobility adoption survey shows that 2017 will see an explosion in the number of mobility application types used by US SMBs. The data presented in figure below shows that small businesses will go from a current average of seven mobility application categories in use to 14 in 2017, and midmarket firms will increase from an average of about six mobility app categories to 13. This 100%-ish growth pattern is demonstrated across most employee-size segments, with all but the 250-499 group anticipating a 2017 net increase in mobile app categories used of 86% or more.

Data drawn from the Techaisle SMB mobility survey shows that SMBs will go from a current average of 7 types of mobility applications in use to 14 in about a year. This 100%-ish growth pattern is demonstrated across most employee size segments.

When we overlay business size with Techaisle’s attitudinally-defined segments of “Pre-IT,” “Basic IT,” “Advanced IT” and “Enterprise IT,” some differences in app adoption emerge. Businesses in the “Pre-IT” segment (found only in the small business group) are currently using only 3 types of mobile apps, versus 7 type of mobile apps in use in each of the “Basic IT: Small Business” and “Advanced IT: Small Business” segments.

This same trend is visible across the three attitudinally-defined midmarket segments. “Basic IT” firms in the midmarket segment are using only 4 types of mobile apps, and planning to add 5 more; both figures are below the adoption rates seen in Basic IT in the small business community.

The more sophisticated segments, though, are adopting mobile applications much more rapidly. The Advanced IT: Midmarket group uses an average of 8 different types of mobile applications today, and is planning to add 6 more in in the next one year, figures that tie very closely to Advanced IT users in the small business community. And the Enterprise IT segment found only within midmarket firms is even more aggressive in mobile app deployment; these firms already use mobile applications in an average of 11 types of apps, and are planning to deploy 9 more.

Mobile applications: scope for growth in core apps and in other categories

The Techaisle SMB mobility adoption survey tracks 20 types of mobile applications. Although there is always overlap between different feature sets and application types, its possible – and useful – to group these into four categories: