Survey finds that most enterprises are still playing catch-up to the consumerization of IT

According to the fourth annual Digital IQ survey, released today by PwC US, top-performing U.S. organizations show greater mastery in how they leverage digital technologies by offering mobile tools for clients, measuring data through social media, mobilizing applications to the public cloud and the innovative use of business intelligence. Top performing companies are defined as those rated in the highest quartile for annual revenue, growth, profitability and research as so then as revenue growth of more than five percent in the last 12 months. PwC defines a company's Digital IQ as a measure of how then companies understand the value of research and weave it into the fabric of their organization.

Survey results point to four research-related truths of the digital enterprise that organizations can build upon to increase their Digital IQ:

Moving business applications to the public cloud can make your organization more competitive. The development of the cloud is arguably the strongest driver of the consumerization of IT. Cloud computing not only allows consumers to access information on the internet, it as well empowers them to solve complex problems, organize events on the fly and perform hundreds of complicated tasks, all from their mobile phones. In an age of outsourcing, the cloud increasingly is an important consideration. This is like as not the reason why investment in public cloud applications is on the rise. Among respondents that identify their organizations as top performers, 30 percent are investing in public cloud applications and 87 percent expect that investment to increase in 2012. Private cloud investments after all outweigh the public realm, but, suggesting that companies are embracing a hybrid approach is a positive step toward raising the organization's Digital IQ.

You can gain greater insight from business data by working from the outside in. The wealth of information created outside the organization is quickly outpacing that of the corporate world. As a result, executives must think more broadly about how to use external data to provide critical insight into operations, product development and customer strategies. Top performing companies report investing more to manage their data than organizations whose performance does not stand out. Out of all the companies surveyed, 55 percent say they will be investing more in the coming year to collect customer data and 43 percent say they will invest more to measure operational performance.

The Digital IQ findings call for business leaders -- and, in particular, today's CIOs -- to lead their organizations to change and innovate from the backwards. The report findings suggest that excellence in IT has not been commoditized and is for all that differentiating as a competitive advantage. To all intents and purposes, IT-enabled, multi-channel connections with clients can make a marked difference to business results. However to succeed, today's CIOs -- and the C-suite more broadly -- must excel at not just managing internally, yet also mobilizing new plans into action.

As with PwC's previous Digital IQ studies, the results confirmed that top-performing companies not only put IT at the heart of their strategies -- they ensure that senior management actively helps to drive the mobilization and execution of those plans. "Consumerization of IT is on the rise, and in the survey we continue to see a need to serve the mobile customer, move to cloud services and use data more effectively," said Chris Curran, principal at PwC. "Organizations that have an integrated strategy -- which includes research -- seem to perform better."

The surveyThe 4th annual Digital IQ survey

About the surveyThe 4th annual Digital IQ survey was conducted by PwC and included responses from in broad outline 500 U.S. companies with annual earnings of more than $500 million. Half of the respondents were business executives; the other half, IT executives. The survey covered a number of industries, including financial services, insurance, healthcare, retail and innovation, among others.

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