Digital Accelerator

What is a Digital Accelerator?

A digital accelerator is a program or initiative designed to help companies in leveraging technology to reshape their workflows and respond to the call of the times.

While often linked to digital transformation, digital acceleration is more focused on how fast an organization is able to embrace digitalization and make fundamental changes in the way it does business. While transformation is a specific process with an end goal, acceleration is a continuous and constant effort that helps companies evolve and keep moving forward despite the challenges that arise.

Companies can make use of available technologies like mobile, cloud services, automation, machine learning (ML), and artificial intelligence (AI) to drive critical business processes and open up new opportunities.

Digital accelerators offer a host of benefits for businesses regardless of industry because it addresses an organization’s core processes and makes them more in tune with modern digital solutions.

In Gartner’s recent Board of Directors survey, 7 out of 10 boards have stated that they have accelerated their digital business initiatives in the wake of the COVID-19 disruption.

Digital acceleration helps provide a framework for delivering solutions quickly and at scale through the establishment of best practices.

A digital accelerator can help businesses achieve the following:

• Decrease in costs while improving and maintaining quality
• Foster a spirit of collaboration and camaraderie by connecting people across the organization, regardless of department or function
• Help in scaling out knowledge faster across the organization
• Lessen IT team workload by training employees in technology and how it can help the business
• Create a future-proof business that can address digital challenges

Why is a Digital Accelerator Important?

Digital accelerators are a beneficial addition to any business because they help determine how fast a company can adopt new technologies, which essentially determines how the same company can benefit from these new technologies. Digital accelerators also help with go-to-market (GTM) strategies by delivering products and services to the market faster. Because businesses have specific and sometimes unique needs, no one will fit all of them. However, a digital accelerator will provide significant benefits in the following areas:

• Reducing labor and operational costs
  By minimizing menial, repetitive tasks, skilled employees can focus on more important tasks. Often, manual tasks can be achieved by using modern software and automation technology at a fraction of the cost. Existing software, more often than not, poses challenges when dealing with modern problems because older software solutions aren’t equipped to address an all-digital, mostly mobile environment. Investing in a digital accelerator allows for the creation of low-cost, high-ROI solutions without the need for costly and time-consuming software development.
• Making sound, data-driven business decisions
  Having real-time information at hand helps businesses make the most sound decisions at any given time. In accurate data can lead to misinformed or even biased decisions that can cause costly mistakes. By integrating information and providing a centralized source of data, data accelerators make it easier to generate reports, identify opportunities, and assess the impact of change—information that was challenging to acquire due to data silos.
• Scaling operations easily
  Digital acceleration is not as simple as getting the latest technology and trying to integrate it into an organization’s workflow. Organizations should take a look at their business processes and determine what works best for them because this process is a double-edged sword; fail to innovate or innovate for the sake of innovation and your business will suffer the consequences. Digital accelerators ensure that technology scales as fast as the business so there will be no significant disruption or complicated transitions.
• Innovating existing solutions
  Digital accelerators ensure that organizations are flexible enough to embrace new methodologies, workflows, and metrics. This, in turn, opens the door to new opportunities that can be leveraged using modern solutions. The agility and flexibility brought about by modern technologies will provide a business a competitive advantage they never had before.
• Future-proofing the business
  Consumer behavior and sentiment is an unpredictable variable i every business, and it’s something that can change in an instant. By keeping abreast of marketing trends and social trends, a business keep itself relevant. Digital accelerators provide the necessary platform so that businesses can keep track of these trends and how customers feel at any given time.

Digital Accelerator Examples

In the fast-paced world of business and technology, almost all modern businesses are digital, but even digital businesses need the right strategy to outplay the competition. In light of this, the banking industry, one of the most conservative when it comes to technology, has invested into digital accelerators to innovate and respond to the call of the times.

Digital Acceleration in Banking

The banking industry is looking at innovating their business model due to technology becoming a driver in decision-making regarding banking partners and a main differentiator between competing institutions. A survey reveals that over 60% of businesses are revisiting their banking partner relationships due to concerns with cost and how banks address the provision of real-time services and improved user journeys. Digital acceleration in many businesses have forced banks to catch up by investing in solutions powered by the cloud, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI). Banking institutions expect this investment to help in customer acquisition and retention, process simplification, and increased productivity in cross- and up-selling.

Digital Accelerator by PwC

The PwC Digital Accelerator program is an internal program designed to train employees and help them develop skills in technology, including design thinking, machine learning (ML), and automation. It’s an immersive two-year training program that takes even non-IT employees out of their day jobs to provide them a better understanding of the organization’s digital initiatives. PwC believes that the knowledge gained through the program is beneficial in changing employees’ mindsets and helping them grasp how technology can make it easier to do their jobs and achieve overall business goals.

What is the Role of Digital Acceleration in Digital transformation?

While often spoken in the same breath as digital transformation, digital acceleration is essentially different in that it’s a a solution primarily focused on helping organizations embrace digital technologies as quickly as possible. Digital accelerators provide companies the means to bring products to market faster and create processes that are easily scalable.

Digital transformation, on the other hand, refers to how companies can leverage digital technology to transform how the company does business, including its strategy, business model, and overall approach. This concept has become a vital discussion in business because it has been shown that businesses that don’t or can’t adopt technology find it extremely difficult to keep up in the current economy.

Digital acceleration plays an important role in digital transformation because the success of the latter depends on how quickly an organization can adopt digital technologies. It helps reduce the complexity of the transition by determining efficient processes and optimizing performance across the organization. As technology continues to evolve, the value of digital acceleration will continue to increase and, so too, will its adoption.