The State of Digital Experiences

In a first-of-its-kind digital experience survey, Progress asked more than 900 industry experts about what they need to compete.

The demand for exceptional digital experiences is at an all-time high—as the number people working, buying and conducting business on multiple devices and channels continues to grow exponentially. So, what do app development, web, marketing and business leaders need to succeed and how are they tackling their digital experience challenges?

“Digital Experiences: Where the Industry Stands” is a comprehensive global survey that details a clarion call for bigger, bolder, and better digital experiences. The findings call attention to the urgent need to meet the exponential growth in demand—not just from customers, but for employee experiences, and for business-to-business (B2B) and digital partnerships.

Based on a series of more than 30 questions, the Progress survey’s findings indicate that businesses see digital experience as a growing priority, a key to their success and as a more integrated approach—both in how it’s delivered and to whom.

(Click here to download the the accompanying digital experience survey infographic.)

A sample of findings include:

• 48% of respondents say they must make significant inroads in digital experience within the next 12 months; 32% said 1-2 years before the business is negatively affected
• 79% of organizations have a mandate to use digital experience to achieve competitive advantage
• 93% agree that coordinating digital experience and app dev efforts can accelerate digital transformation outcomes more quickly
• 77% said alignment and coordination between IT and the business is good, which is a significant turn from previous years in which alignment was needed
• B2C experiences remains the top priority (72%), but employee and B2B/partner experiences are growing in importance
• Due to this expansion of priority, traditional channels like desktop and web have expanded to include work devices (64%), mobile apps (58%) and portals (56%). Channels most likely to be added in next 12 months include virtual reality (46%), augmented reality (41%) and micro apps (40%)

Download: Digital Experience Survey Ebook

Although many respondents understand the importance of these initiatives, 53% of enterprises are struggling and 90% of the 910 respondents have canceled or delayed digital experience projects in the last 12 months.

Details on these blockers as well as a comparison of results from our 2016 survey, “Are Businesses Really Digitally Transforming, or Living in Digital Denial,” are available in the full report, which can be located here.

"When it comes right down to it, digital transformation, customer experiences, the buyer's journey and even employee experiences are all made meaningful by one thing—delivering incredible digital experiences on every channel, every device, every touch point, everywhere and at all times. Anything less is no longer acceptable. Our partners and customers know we will all be judged by the best experiences, and we have to meet incredible expectations,” Progress President and CEO Yogesh Gupta said.

We took on this research because we know digital experience is crucial to any business, but we wanted to get a sense of exactly how far along larger organizations are in their planning and execution.

The high volume of responses indicates that the interest is strong, but with any major undertaking there are impediments.

The goal of our research is to help organizations wade through the noise to determine the best course of action for success by drawing on the learnings from industry leaders.

Download: Full Digital Experience Survey Results