The fear of "Uberization
According to a recent study by the IBM Institute for Business Value (IBV), the trend of "Uberization," which is used to describe the softening of industry boundaries by new competitors, is one of the main concerns in boardrooms.
The proportion of executives who expect to have to increasingly compete against competitors from outside their industry has risen by more than a quarter in the last two years - from 43 percent in 2013 to 54 percent today. For the study, "Redefining Boundaries: Insights from the Global C-suite Study," some 5,200 CEOs, CMOs, CFOs and CIOs from public and private companies in 21 industries were surveyed in over 70 countries.
The buzzword is industry convergence: According to the study, more and more CxOs rate the convergence of industries as the defining factor influencing their businesses over the next three to five years. After all, 24 percent of executives from companies rated as high performers want to use cognitive technologies. Their predictive as well as cognitive analytics methods help predict with greater certainty what will happen in the competitive landscape, according to the study.
Avoid the unknown
For a long time, those new players who wanted to secure more market share with more favorable offers were considered the greatest risk for traditional companies. This is different today: Today, established companies are increasingly being squeezed by new market players with completely new, mostly digital, business models or by smaller, more agile competitors.
The changed framework conditions also have an impact on management in the companies: For example, nearly half (48 percent) of CxOs see the need to strengthen their decentralized decision-making, 54 percent are looking to innovate outside their companies, and 70 percent plan to expand their partner networks.
On the other hand, a majority of CxOs are confident that the way they deal with customers will actually change in the future: Two-thirds of those surveyed expect the focus to shift more to the customer as an individual - an increase of 22 percent since 2013 - and 81 percent are planning more digital interaction.
New technologies
The CxOs' assessment of the importance of new technologies has also changed: Whereas in the last three CxO studies it was only the CEOs who rated technology as the most important external force with the greatest influence on their business, this time all top managers without exception share this opinion.
For example, respondents believe that cloud computing, mobile solutions, the Internet of Things, and cognitive computing have the greatest potential to revolutionize their businesses.
Another topic is IT security, which played a subordinate role two years ago. Today, it is considered the "number one" business risk by 68 percent of respondents.
To read the entire IBM Global C-Suite Study, visit: www-935.ibm.com/services/c-suite/study/
