The Next Chapter of Digital Transformation in China

Now in its fifth year, Altimeter‘s annual “State of Digital Transformation” research continues to document the constantly evolving enterprise. As disruptive technologies and their impact on organizations and markets continue to progress, our research aims to capture the shifts and trends that are shaping modern digital transformation.

Our global study revealed insightful differences between businesses operating in China, and those in the rest of the world, on how they think of and approach digital transformations.

In China’s distinct and fast evolving landscape, digital transformation is even more important.

In the past few years, the tech giants BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent), JD and some of our most recent tech unicorns including Didi Chuxing, ByteDance (TikTok and Toutiao), RED and Meituan Dianping among others, have led the first wave of digital transformation. Now, we are entering the ‘second half’ of the digital revolution, where more traditional businesses are transforming themselves to become more digitally-led to compete and thrive.

• Over the past decade, China’s growth and technology transformation has been led and fueled by BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent). We are now entering the next chapter of digital transformation where businesses and brands must adapt and lead their own digital transformation to compete and thrive.
• In China’s unique digital ecosystem, almost all companies are undergoing digital transformations. Compared to other countries in the world, Chinese enterprises embrace digital transformation in a more proactive way—with CEOs playing a bigger role in leading the effort. Additionally, companies in China prioritize consumer-facing touchpoints, such as customer experience and e-commerce, to a significantly higher degree in their digital transformation.
• It is worth noting that having a strong organizational culture is instrumental to sustainable growth. However, companies in China are overwhelmingly more concerned with ROI than internal initiatives like organizational structure and employee engagement. While driving a customer-centric growth is a competitive advantage for companies operating in China, internal organization, way of working and company culture are also essential enablers for tapping into the Body, the Mind, and the Soul of the organization.

Download the full report below.