Illuminating the Path to Digital Maturity
Research by Akamai and Forrester Sheds New Light on Digital Experience Challenges and Opportunities
Nearly every business today is striving to create and deliver digital experiences that stand apart. But it's no small task turning those visions into reality. Moreover, there's little room for error. Complicating matters is the never-ending introduction of new technologies, approaches, opportunities, and challenges.
As businesses derive more and more revenue from digital capabilities, the need to balance seamless digital experiences with the rigorous demands of digital security will be crucial for the future economy. Executives must assess their firm's ability to simultaneously deliver secure, yet seamless experiences if they are to sustain the trust and loyalty of customers to support future revenue growth.
Understanding the digital experience from every angle
Akamai's business is focused on making it easier for organizations to deliver world-class digital experiences. And we've gained incredible insights in the process of interacting with 1.3 billion client devices every day on behalf of a variety of industries, including the more digitally mature ones like e-commerce, financial services, media/entertainment, and government. What we see firsthand is the intersection of user experience and digital security and how that impacts user behavior on websites and applications.
We're committed to keeping our finger on the pulse of how digital businesses across the globe align user experience and security with their strategic priorities. That's why we engaged Forrester Consulting to conduct cutting-edge research designed to examine how digital maturity shapes those views and perceptions. We wanted to understand:
What is the connection between customer trust and sustained revenue growth?
Are mature digital companies more mature in their security?
What security/architecture challenges do organizations face as they seek to mature their digital experiences?
What is the connection between digital maturity and security?
How do you develop and demonstrate trust through the digital experience?
Our ultimate goal: enable companies at every stage of digital and security maturity.
Forrester provides new insights
Akamai partnered with Forrester to craft and commission a survey of over 350 leading IT executives around the world. The research confirmed many of our beliefs and provided geographic and industry context. Namely, it found that:
Every business, including industry leaders, struggles to achieve the necessary balance of digital innovation and security.
Leveraging security and good performance to strategically enable a better customer experience pays off big in the form of greater customer trust and higher revenues: the most digitally mature companies experience growth rates that outpace their competitors, more frequently reporting double-digit revenue growth.
Across regions, Forrester surfaced these findings:
The U.S., Canada and Germany feel they have the highest levels of trust (72%, 72%, and 80% respectively), but the U.K. and Japan lag significantly (54% and 51% respectively)
Japan is the least likely of the countries surveyed to completely secure data cloud security software, services, and process automation -- just 15%
The U.K. is the least likely of the countries surveyed to fully base service-level agreements for cloud services on the actual experience the customer receives -- just 10%
Germany grapples with greater issues related to the complexity of its environment and number of vendors to manage than the U.S., Canada, U.K., and Japan
When it came to industry-specific concerns, Forrester discovered that:
Manufacturers report some of the lowest revenue/customer growth rates of those surveyed
The healthcare industry cited "damage to brand/reputation" as a top challenge more than any other industry (70% of healthcare respondents) -- healthcare firms also have the hardest time getting the visibility and influence they need internally to mature their digital experiences
More than any other industry, those in Commerce cited the complexity of their technology environment as a top challenge when maturing digital experiences
Start your journey to digital experience and security excellence
This research forms the foundation for a program within Akamai focused on Digital Maturity and Security. Throughout the year, we will be sharing more insights and recommendations based on the survey.
For now, download the Forrester white paper Drop A Pin At The Intersection Of Digital
Experience And Security: Mapping The Route To Digital Business Prowess to see:
A comparison of the challenges of top and bottom groups on the maturity spectrum
Behaviors to mimic and pitfalls to avoid
Recommendations for next steps on the path to digital experience and security excellence
To jumpstart your digital maturity initiative, take this interactive online assessment and find out how your organization compares to those from the survey. The customized results and recommendations will provide insights into how well your company balances digital experience delivery with digital security, and your organization's readiness for digital business overall.
Once you are ready to move up the maturity scale, you can take advantage of Akamai's cloud delivery platform. Akamai makes it easier to map a route to the best and most secure digital experiences. The world's largest and most trusted cloud delivery platform makes it easier to:
Deliver great user experiences that engage customers anywhere, anytime
Accelerate mobile apps, websites, and APIs with powerful machine learning
Protect websites, apps, APIs, and endpoints from distributed denial of service (DDoS), bots, and other advanced threats
Monitor, test, and optimize the performance of websites and apps in real time, at scale
We look forward to accompanying you on your journey to digital experience and security excellence! To get started, visit our Digital Maturity and Security page.
