From football to your field

PwC and Microsoft are using cloud, artificial intelligence and virtual reality to change the game for business. Who's seeing the benefits? Your employees, facilities and customers. To realize the full power of data and technology you should align critical data from your customers, operations and teams. In our 2022 Digital IQ Survey, business and tech leaders shared their industry playbooks, telling us what they’re after, where they’re investing, what’s working and what’s next.

What’s your digital end game?

Where companies are focused over the next two years

Payback differs by industry. Select yours to learn more.

Banking and capital markets

Better customer experiences at lower cost

The pandemic has led many banks to rethink their customer experience, not only to save on costs but to preserve and grow brand loyalty. Many are rethinking their organizational structure to compete through mobile-first offerings. In the long run, success also means making new investments to take advantage of data insights that help enable growth in highly-regulated environments. Banks need effective data and analytics strategies to align their products to the markets and customers they’re targeting. As customers get more comfortable with digital interactions and services, they’ll want more diverse offerings personalized to their needs.

Here’s what banking and capital markets executives had to say

Case study

Financial consulting firm puts customers first for mutual benefits

Wesleyan Assurance Society, a long-established financial consulting firm, needed to update its legacy technology platforms to get a unified view of its clients and provide greater security against cyber attacks. Using Microsoft Azure, PwC helped build a cloud-based data center to provide consultants with deeper customer insights, increasing their client satisfaction while strengthening the company’s cyber security profile. Seventy-nine percent of their salespeople are now able to identify better prospects and 69% identify new customers through these insights.

Five digital changes executives are focused on next

Using pre-built integrations and utilities to connect banking capabilities that are purpose-built for cloud.
Exploring offerings from fintech providers to accelerate cloud strategy.
Developing effective data strategies to align products to the markets and customers.
Retuning and automating processes to adapt to a changing regulatory environment.
Using data, AI and machine learning to improve decision-making.

Entertainment and media

Staying competitive with data

It’s imperative that entertainment and media companies meet customers where they are now and where they will be in the future. Increasingly, that means online and on mobile devices at the time and place of the customer’s choosing. During the pandemic, sector leaders were able to quickly ramp up offerings while expanding their customer base, but turning that into long-term success is critical. All that makes adoption of AI, automation and a sharper focus on data analytics more important than ever. Those who use data and tech to better focus on customer experience will be well positioned to reap their fair share of future growth.

Here’s what entertainment and media executives had to say

Case study

Smart venues run on data to reimagine experiences

Powered by technology and fueled by analytics, PwC and Microsoft are helping to create a new smart community to provide innovative experiences for residents, businesses and visitors. This mixed-use development connects housing, offices, entertainment venues and outdoor spaces using Microsoft Azure services and Dynamics 365 to collect data and turn them into actionable insights. A 3D digital twin of the entire development provides a single source of truth for district-wide systems like waste management and parking, with spatial context and live data captured from movement, occupancy and system activity. By leveraging these data insights, the district can drive operational efficiencies while creating premium experiences for the customers who work, live and play there.

Five digital changes executives are focused on next

Upskilling staff on new technologies.
Adopting new technology for customer use.
Identifying new revenue streams to support growth and stay in business.
Adopting new technology, including digital assets such as fungible and non-fungible tokens, to foster sustainable growth.
Hiring people with skills around new technologies, including digital assets and metaverse.

Healthcare

Becoming more consumer-focused

Providers are fine-tuning “digital front door” mobile apps that connect them to their patients, beefing up portals and intensifying their use of customer relationship management (CRM) tools. Many are using virtual care and analytics to not only improve customer experience and create regular touchpoints with patients but also to expand capacity to avoid frustrating or alienating patients. Investments in virtual care, analytics and CRM tools are being made to build better relationships and drive growth.

Here’s what healthcare executives had to say

Case study

Cloud and AI fight a rare disease

Today, a majority of patients affected by a deadly, rare lung disease are misdiagnosed. To support patients and healthcare providers fighting this disease, PwC helped the Open Source Imagining Consortium build a ground-breaking medical imaging platform, built on Microsoft Azure, that dramatically increases professional access to relevant imaging and data sets. By the end of 2022, over 15,000 scans are projected to be included in the central repository — highlighting new possibilities to improve the speed and accuracy of diagnosis while driving vital advancements in medicine that aim to enhance patient lives.

Five digital changes executives are focused on next

Adopting new technologies for customer use.
Improving efficiency to continue to reduce costs.
Enhancing security of patient information and other data to keep pace with telehealth, digital supply chains and increasing vulnerabilities.
Improving employee experience, including expanded front office automation.
Upskilling staff on new technologies to help address continuing labor shortages.

Industrial products

Accelerating digital operations

For industrial products and manufacturing executives, the pandemic and worker shortfalls accelerated the need to expand efforts to digitize operations, warehouses and even supply chains to enable more widespread automation and to implement predictive maintenance of operational assets. This has meant investing more in the adoption of Industry 4.0 technologies including IIoT, robotics, AI and cloud.

The pandemic also triggered manufacturers to build out e-commerce platforms to provide “no-touch” purchasing and after-sales services to not only improve customer experience but to extend customer reach.

But as manufacturers continue to connect assets with digital threads, they’re also widening their organization’s cyber attack surface, not only within their operations but also with downstream suppliers and even customers of connected products. As companies increasingly adopt IoT and cloud technologies to improve customer service, operations and supply chains, they’ll need to redouble efforts to protect against cyber vulnerabilities.

Here’s what industrial products executives had to say

Case study

Global manufacturer increases efficiencies across their plants

Global automotive supplier ZF wanted to compare efficiencies between its various plants by creating a digital manufacturing program built on Azure cloud with PwC’s Factory Intelligence solution. Using advanced analytics, visualizations and automated workflows, the company is now able to reduce conversion cost, improve overall performance and increase workforce efficiency and effectiveness across its ~200 plants.

“With the DMP (Digital Manufacturing Platform) implementation we expect vast improvement to our production as our factories are operating not only quickly and reliably but also in a very highly adoptable way and highly flexible manner enabling great process changes.”

Gabriel Gonzalez-Alonso SVP, Head of Corporate Production Management, ZF

Five digital changes executives are focused on next

Connecting assets to digital technologies to monitor and predict maintenance.
Upskilling staff on new technologies.
Adopting more tech to streamline and simplify processes and improve productivity.
Improving collaboration across teams with technology and structural changes.
Responding to e-commerce demand and cybersecurity concerns.

Retail

Bringing customer needs to the forefront

Executives in retail and consumer packaged goods are prioritizing innovation. Using data and digital in new ways has helped them hone customer needs and automated processes for their teams. This use of data has paid off, both in terms of improving customer experience and giving employees more time for strategic tasks and innovation.

As customers increasingly demand personalized experiences both in stores and online, companies need to double down on investments in digital products and services that provide real-time data to stay connected with customers and allow teams to deliver better service.

Here’s what retail and consumer packaged goods executives had to say

Case study

Motorcycle company uses data to modernize sales and service

Faced by inconsistent customer experience across their large dealer network, a global motorcycle manufacturer improved sales and service by building a Microsoft Dynamics 365-based CRM & DMS (dealer management system). The system supports in-store employees in 3,000+ dealers and across 40 countries to instantly access and update customer data and purchase history via smartphone and tablet. This technology also gives the staff a 360-degree customer view to streamline touchpoints, boosting the company’s reputation for boutique service and growing its already fervent fan base.

Five digital changes executives are focused on next

Targeting direct consumer relationships using the abundance of available data.
Devising a technology-enabled ESG strategy to help create value for stakeholders.
Harnessing a cloud ecosystem to reach direct-to-consumer e-commerce channels and generate new brand loyalty.
Using digital and tech to support development of new products and services.
Pursuing digital transformation for the next wave of cost reduction.

Source: PwC Digital IQ Survey. Base: 1,250 business and technology executives. Qs. Which of the following best describes your organization’s primary aspiration for digital outcomes? - Next two years; What percentage of improvements in the following areas do you attribute to your digital investments? To what extent have you realized value in the following areas as a result of your digital efforts and investments? To what extent have you realized value from these efforts?

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