Report

During the pandemic, digital experiences became the primary way knowledge workers got things done.

This big shift won’t reverse itself when the virus is behind us. We’ve entered a new world of work defined by virtual experiences delivered on digital platforms.

To understand how successful organizations provide great experiences to all their stakeholders, ServiceNow and ThoughtLab conducted a survey of 1,000 global C-level executives working in five industry sectors across 13 countries. Annual revenues of their companies ranged from $350 million to more than $5 billion.

We identified best practices by categorizing respondents as beginners, intermediates, or leaders, based on the progress they have made in key areas of customer and employee experience, and correlated this with the benefits they are generating. This enabled us to show what leaders do differently than others, and the benefits to be gained by moving to the next stage of maturity.

More than half the respondents, across all industries, reported that digitizing and aligning customer and employee experiences yielded greater revenue—the top benefit reported. Investments in new workplace practices and digital tools created a virtuous cycle, contributing to employee well-being and to a better understanding of customer needs. In turn, this yielded better experiences for customers.

The survey identified challenges as well. An explosion of digital channels has given unhappy customers more paths to publicize their grievances. And for all the benefits of remote work (more time with family, fewer soul-crushing commutes), it has also increased worker isolation and blurred the boundary between work and personal life. The survey identified employee resistance to change as the most pressing issue for companies that seek to deliver better experiences. Amazing tech won’t matter much if employees don’t use it.

Industrial manufacturing companies are going through a time of unprecedented crisis: the global COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted established supply chains, conflict in Eastern Europe has added to the strain, and the resulting shortage of key materials, from microchips to steel, means fewer finished products and significantly higher input costs.

These challenges are pushing manufacturers to rethink their operating models. The PwC Digital Factory Transformation Survey 2022 is based on the input of more than 700 manufacturing companies across the globe, and we found that worldwide, industrial companies are investing $1.1 trillion a year in digital transformation solutions.

The survey results show that the most effective companies – we call them Digital Champions – are implementing a full suite of factory-level digital technologies to drive manufacturing flexibility and resilience, as well as to reduce operational cost via factory automation. They are creating double-digit returns through a combination of cost efficiencies and greater flexibility. Yet the survey also shows that progress is slow: two thirds of companies are still close to the beginning of their digital journey.

The PwC Digital Factory Transformation Survey 2022 was conducted in the second half of 2021 and gathered responses from 700 global corporations from at least 23 different countries to find out about the status of their Smart Factory transformation, their priorities in technologies and use cases, as well as their general transformation approach.

Survey respondents were drawn equally from companies in six sectors: Retail & Consumer Goods, High Technology & Electronics, Chemicals & Process Industries, Pharmaceuticals & Medical Technology, Automotive & Transportation, and Industrial Manufacturing. Respondents were C-Suite executives or operations leaders, with 70% of companies represented having revenues in excess of €3 billion.

Milton Friedman, the Nobel laureate economist once wrote an article stating that “the only social responsibility of business is to increase its profits.” As the world emerges from the pandemic and enters a new era, that view has been replaced by a broader mission for business: to enrich all corporate stakeholders by contributing to the health and wellbeing of people and the planet.

NTT and ThoughtLab conducted a comprehensive study of 500 companies across seven industries and eight world markets to understand this corporate mandate and how firms achieve it. The study examined how firms incorporate sustainability into their business strategies and plans and the outcomes they are seeing. Crucially, it analyzed how they are leveraging digital innovation to achieve their social, environmental, and economic goals.

As part of the research, we grouped companies into three maturity categories based on their progress against a framework of 10 initiatives for driving sustainable innovation (see appendix). This framework enabled our research team to investigate the business approaches and digital solutions that help sustainability leaders achieve their goals. It also allowed us to identify a roadmap to sustainability excellence and the steps firms take along their journey. This report presents the key findings of our research and shares valuable insights that will help others follow the path that leaders have created.