State of Application Strategy 2022: Digital Innovators Highlight the Importance of Modernizing

This year's State of Application Strategy Report aims to uncover what it takes to be a digital transformation leader. Digital transformation leaders are at the forefront for how they interact with customers, how their organizations create products and services, and how their internal operations teams and technology stack deliver these experiences. In our deeper look, we found that 82% of organizations are having digital interactions with their customers, patients, partners, suppliers, constituents, and students in addition to their own internal employees-we call them Digital Innovators.

Digital Innovators are not just purchasing technology, they approach digital transformation with a strategic mindset, connecting the dots between the technology capabilities required to deliver their desired business outcomes. They have started to change the way they operate and do business because digital initiatives across all business functions offer the promise of faster rates of innovation, higher market share gains, and greater operational efficiencies.

As Lori MacVittie mentions, this year we see serious attention being paid to the technology side of delivering on the business promise of digital transformation. Our research uncovered specific examples of how these digital innovators are adopting new technologies and processes, with the expectation that leaders in respective industries will see their successes followed and copied. Let's take a look...

Modernizing Operations

Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) practices enable the automation of processes at scale across the disciplines of development and operations with the goal of delivering on the business need for agility, security, and performance. Connecting the dots on the importance of SRE practices and digital innovation, we found 45% of Digital Innovators have adopted SRE practices compared to only 10% of those without digital services-a 4X difference in adoption. It's clear that operational investments stand out among all digital transformation priorities, with over $620 billion in spending expected this year according to IDC.