Digital change: are you mainstream, a fast follower or an innovator?

“The pace of digital change is creating new opportunities for our customers and those opportunities require quick responses.” Luis Alvarez, CEO of Global Services, BT.

Are you recognising the new opportunities that digital change is creating for your customers, and how to respond?

Two recent surveys by BT and Gartner highlight the critical role that business leaders play in transforming their organisations by embracing digital.

According to BT’s survey of 1,030 senior IT decision makers based in eleven countries, CIOs around the world are embracing digital transformation to reinvent their organisations’ processes and systems. 72% of senior IT decision makers say that the CIO has become more central in the boardroom over the last two years, and CIOs are clear on the most disruptive technology trends like cloud, mobility and collaboration, and data. Also a fifth of global organisations are already completely cloud-centric, and a further 46% have more than half their applications and infrastructure in the cloud, although for the UK/Ireland the figures are lower, at 13% and 31% respectively.

Gartner, the world’s leading information technology research and advisory company, has recently published a report based on the results of its most recent CEO survey. Almost 400 leaders of large organisations across the world took part in the survey during the last quarter of 2015, and the results show that many CEOs expect their industries to be transformed by digital.

Many more CEOs see their companies as innovation leaders today than when a similar question was last asked, in 2013. In the latest survey, 80% of CEOs think their companies are pioneers or fast followers in their industries, with only 20% choosing to describe their companies as ‘mainstream’.

The survey also found that CEOs believe that the ‘digital’ value their customers perceive and pay for is increasing. Gartner believes this is one of the big shifts that distinguishes digital business.
Though digital marketing and e-commerce continues to grow, Gartner says that ‘remastering your product for the digital age’ is now the bigger issue to conquer, and companies must benchmark against born-digital and tech companies, not just existing competitors.

Britain’s resilient property market has fuelled a growth of online estate agents, and investors are warming to a new business model whose fees often undercut those of traditional estate agents. Some analysts have even compared the ‘disruptive’ technology-driven new businesses with the success of taxi-hailing service Uber, which is challenging old-fashioned taxi services.

Do you ever compare your business model to other companies outside of the residential property sector? What might the property sector learn from other businesses that are embracing digital and the added benefits it can give their business and their customers?

Is there anything to be learned from Amazon’s growth strategy of giving consumers lower prices, wide selection, and great service? Those words are easy to say and hard to make real for each of its hundreds of millions of customers around the world. But Amazon has invested in warehouses and new marketing programs to back up its strategy. It is speeding up shipping times thanks in part to increasing their number of warehouses, plus it is able to use its extensive server base and online capabilities to push additional services, like Amazon Prime, to provide unlimited streaming of films and TV programs. Added to this, their strategy for Europe expansion includes armchair grocery shopping, where it can use its extensive logistics network to delivery non-traditional products like groceries.

The internet has transformed the way we search for property, but most of us still rely on traditional High Street estate agents when buying and selling houses. It’s reported that around 90 percent of property is sold when customers contact a traditional estate agency after a search on websites like Rightmove and Zoopla. How long this remains the case is the subject of considerable ongoing debate.

Digital is also transforming estate and letting agencies in other critical areas of business, including cloud-based back office software, online repairs software, digital touchscreens, virtual reality property tours and app-based property reporting software.

Where do you sit on the digital spectrum; are you in the mainstream, a fast follower or an innovator remastering your business for the digital age?

Alex Evans

You May Also Enjoy

Breaking News

Rent and run? Agents warn of new ‘Stopover Tenant’ epidemic

Nearly 1 in 3 letting agents report tenants walking away from 6–12 month tenancies – some after just a few months Experts warn rental reforms are fueling relocation-style, short-term renting Almost half of agents now advising landlords on how to manage early exits A new trend is sweeping the rental market and it’s leaving landlords…
Read More
Breaking News

Breaking Property News 11/09/25

Daily bite-sized proptech and property news in partnership with Proptech-X.   A ‘workplace companion that’s not just about managing buildings’ Smart Spaces has launched Space Agent, its new agentic AI-driven workplace concierge designed to transform how people manage and engage with buildings and their workplaces. Space Agent – introduced through its friendly persona, Max – is fully…
Read More
Breaking News

Where can you still buy a home for under £150k?

Zoopla reveals Great Britain’s property bargain hotspots Just 12 per cent of all homes for sale across Great Britain are priced under £150,000 making location key for home buyers looking for a bargain In the North East, a remarkable 41 per cent of all homes for sale fall within this price range, followed by Scotland…
Read More
Breaking News

Landlord repossessions soar as Renters’ Rights Bill looms

Landlord repossessions soar as Renters’ Rights Bill looms, with some areas seeing increase of over 2,500% The latest analysis from Dwelly, one of the UK’s leading lettings acquisition and success planning experts, shows that landlord repossessions have increased by 6.8% across England and Wales. However, in some areas of the country they have soared by…
Read More
Breaking News

These are Britain’s most active housing markets

New research from The Property DriveBuy reveals that the busiest homebuying postcodes in Britain right now are found in Croydon, Buckinghamshire and Waltham Forest, however, for those hopeful homebuyers facing tough competition, shifting to a neighbouring postcode could see them secure a property. The Property DriveBuy analysed latest housing market data to discover which of…
Read More
Breaking News

Downsizers can bag 2 for 1 on property purchases

The latest research from over-50s property specialists, Regency Living, reveals that downsizing retirees could own two homes for the price of one, combining a comfortable home in England with a sunny escape in Europe. According to Regency Living’s latest analysis, retirees who sell a traditional bricks and mortar house and purchase a park home can…
Read More