Which-50.com, Australia, Reports on Cognizant’s ‘The Work Ahead’ Study

“Digital laggards have surrendered over $262.5 billion in economic benefit due to their transformative tardiness, according to a new study by Cognizant,” writes Which-50.com, a digital intelligence and transformation news source for Australia’s senior business decision-makers. “The research also suggested that digital transformation could impact over $20 trillion worth of economic activity over the next two years.”

Manish Bahl, Senior Director, Center for the Future of Work at Cognizant, says: “The impact of new technologies on all aspects of business — what we’re now calling ‘digital’ — is so large that there is no way for any of us to escape its gravitational pull. Even if you are one of the few who think this is all still hype, if you’re set on denying the real value of code, your defensive barricade will not hold for much longer. No company will be able to escape from the impact of new technologies on work and business. The impact will change not only business, but also education and government, and it will also redefine what it means to be a healthy society.”

Which-50.com cites the following key trends from the study:

- Respondents estimated the impact of digital transformation will more than double in the next three years. While an estimated 6 percent of revenue was driven by digital technologies in 2015, by 2018, this is expected to reach 14 percent, representing a value of about $770 billion per year for the 2,000 companies surveyed — a total economic impact of $2.3 trillion.

- For businesses, digital will increase revenues on average by over 10 percent. This rate will reach 12.9 percent in the retail industry by 2018, in comparison to 7 percent today.

- In APAC, respondents expect digital to deliver US$142 billion in net revenue per year by 2018, a total economic impact of $425 billion across all companies studied in the region.

- Over 98 percent of leaders globally see artificial intelligence and analytics as the most impactful game-changers by 2018.

- By 2025, the impact of analytics will grow by 34.7 percent, sensors/IoT by 41.5 percent, virtual reality by 21 percent, cybersecurity by 32.3 percent and blockchain by 26.8 percent.

- Respondents expect a return on investment in digital technologies to average 86.1 percent between 2015 and 2018.

- Retail is the most likely sector to invest in digital innovation, and expects a 119 percent ROI.

- Between 2015 and 2018 alone, the impact of digital transformation in the retail, banking, insurance, manufacturing, healthcare and life sciences industries, which today generate over $60 trillion in revenue or 40 percent of world’s GDP, could be up to $20 trillion.

“Laggards are in for a hard time according to the Cognizant’s study which suggests that that a ‘wait and see’ approach with digital technologies will have a detrimental financial impact in the coming years,” Which-50.com writes. “The researchers called this ‘The Laggard Penalty’ — the difference in both cost and revenue performance due to a lack of technology adoption.”

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