More of the world’s top 2,500 companies have appointed executives to manage their businesses’ digital transformation since last year, a study by PwC’s “Strategy&” has found. But data also revealed that Asia-Pacific firms lag behind other regions in appointing chief digital officers.
Europe led all other regions in hiring for the role at 38% of companies. North America followed with 23% and South and Latin America with 13%. Hiring for digital leaders in Asia-Pacific was slower at 7% of companies.
Of the world’s top public companies by market capitalization, 19% now have a chief digital officer or an executive tasked to put into practice the company’s digital mission. Although still a modest number, the figure represents a more than triple increase from the 6% a year ago. The study found that 60% of digital leaders covered in its study were only hired within the last two years.
In light of the results, Strategy& said other companies would do well to look into the “hype” around digital leader positions.
“For a growing number of companies, it’s just not feasible any longer to spread out various digital efforts among separate business units,” says Pierre Peladeau, co-author of the study. “It may work during early stages of digitalization, but as a company moves towards a more advanced stage of digital maturity, a unified approach is needed to execute a more comprehensive digital strategy.”
The study found that financial services and consumer-focused companies had the highest digital leader ratio. Of top insurance companies, 35% have appointed digital leaders, while 27% of banking and consumer products companies have hired one.
Larger companies in terms of market capitalization have also hired more digital leaders than smaller businesses. 33% of companies in Quartile 4 had a chief digital officer. This figure falls to 18% for Quartile 3 and 15% for Quartile 2. Of the companies in Quartile 1, only 10% had named a digital leader.
The study further revealed that because companies hired digital leaders externally and internally, digital executives across the top companies hold a variety of skills. Only 32% of digital leaders this year had technology backgrounds, an increase from the 14% a year ago – when leaders with marketing and sales backgrounds dominated at 34% and 17%, respectively.
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