Retail sector is the king of digital transformation

August 12, 2021 Dominic Lill

The UK retail sector is leading the way when it comes to digital transformation after a survey revealed 92% of retail businesses see themselves as having already gone digital.

In fact, a further 69% are planning to speed up the roll out of further digital transformation projects because of the pandemic.

The survey, commissioned by Crown Records Management, sought to build a picture of digital transformation in the UK and to find out where companies sat on their digital journey.

The results indicate that retail has embraced the digital revolution, outperforming all other sectors, with only the insurance and finance sector recording similar statistics.

The key results showed:

90% in the sector felt that the pandemic had made the C-suite in their business recognise the importance of digital transformation.
48% said that increasing staff productivity was the most important driver of digital transformation in their business, followed by improving compliance (46%) and enhancing data security (42%).
Saving money is seen as the biggest incentive to go digital (24%) followed by saving the business from GDPR fines (20%).
44%, less than half, are very confident they know what data is being stored across the IT systems in their business.

Antony Biondi, Head of ECM at Crown Records Management, said: “The survey reflects the speed at which the retail sector has had to adapt and transform over the past year, as many have had to pivot operations to meet increased demand for home deliveries.

“It’s clear that digital transformation adds significant value for the retail sector, with saving costs and avoiding fines seen as the top incentives. With large and dispersed teams to manage, it’s no surprise that increasing staff productivity and compliance were seen as the key drivers of digital transformation.

“One really encouraging statistic is that 90% said their C-suite had realised the importance of going digital due to the pandemic – this buy-in at the highest level of the business shows that the sector is truly embracing the digital revolution.

“There are also high levels of confidence in the sector, with only four per cent of people saying they were not confident that they know what data is being stored across their IT systems – top marks for the retail sector!”