The Digital Efficiency challenge: How effective are your processes?

Summary

Customer expectations for fast, frictionless digital experiences have shifted from a competitive advantage to a baseline requirement, driven by the rise of digital-native brands and online retail. Yet many established companies still run on processes never designed for that standard, leaving a widening gap between what customers now expect and what legacy systems and workflows can actually deliver.

Closing that gap takes more than tweaking a single system or interface. It requires rethinking the underlying business strategy, mapping the full customer journey, and redesigning core service architecture around efficiency rather than working around old constraints. Brands that succeed treat digital efficiency as an ongoing discipline — with a clear purpose for improving the experience, services engineered for smooth execution, and continuous re-evaluation against a defined target state.

Understanding where an organization stands on digital efficiency starts with identifying the right benchmarks and metrics, from process speed and error rates to customer effort and drop-off points across a digital journey. Measuring these consistently is what separates companies that only talk about customer experience from those that can demonstrate real progress toward it.

• Covers the shift from digital-native customer expectations to legacy process design
• Frames the key metrics used to benchmark digital efficiency across a customer journey

How would your organization's processes hold up if measured against today's digital efficiency benchmarks?