5 Digital Trends for Manufacturing CIOs to Watch in 2023

 Over the past three years, supply chain disruptions and rapidly-changing market dynamics have spurred IT leaders in the manufacturing industry to use digital solutions to drive profitability by optimizing key business areas and improving end-to-end experiences. According to a study from The Manufacturer and IBM, 67% of manufacturers have accelerated digital projects since the advent of COVID-19 – a push that is expected to intensify in 2023.

“Disruptions in supply chains will likely persist until the second half of 2023, impacting the economic outlook of the manufacturing industry decisively. Company leaders are scanning the horizon for challenges and opportunities that may arise in this scenario,” said Jason Chang, Director of Industry Marketing at Liferay. Liferay develops a cloud-powered digital experience platform (DXP) used by manufacturing companies worldwide to build customer and partner portals, intranets, and websites.

Given the likelihood of continued disruption, Liferay experts tracking digitization processes and trends in manufacturing worldwide have outlined the following five digital experience trends for CIOs to watch in 2023:

Delivering Frictionless Digital Customer Experiences

Now that industrial buyers have immediate access to information from anywhere they are located, they have become more well-informed and self-sufficient. Manufacturers need to meet changing expectations and equip buyers to handle order or product issues themselves.

To address this challenge, CIOs should build solutions that provide customers instant access to detailed product and account information, so they can easily search and compare items, and provide direct feedback. The overarching goal should be to deliver frictionless digital experiences that keep customers coming back.

Improving the Aftersales Experience While Reducing Costs

The motto ‘do more with less’ will become a priority for leaders in manufacturing around the globe as profit margins get compressed and the pressure to invest in digital solutions grows. Making aftersales processes and services more efficient will become even more critical.

As an example, Deloitte estimates that aftersales service can generate 20% to 50% more profitability for manufacturers compared to new product sales. Consequently, by offering compelling, tailored experiences post-purchase, manufacturers can continue to deliver value.

In order to capitalize on aftersales possibilities, leading manufacturers are looking for solutions that minimize unplanned downtime for customers, streamline spare parts ordering, and reduce support costs with self-service.

Improving the Employee Experience

The challenges facing manufacturers in a competitive and fast-paced environment are varied and complex:

Highly-distributed workforce: Employees worldwide have trouble finding the information they need because it resides across different documents that are located in separate and disconnected document repositories.

Multiple disconnected channels: Information is delivered to employees from too many channels and in different formats (email, communication apps, customer service, etc.), making it difficult for them to remain abreast of or find important information later.

To counter these challenges, CIOs in manufacturing should implement collaboration platforms that enable consistent enterprise-wide communication between employees, external partners, and other important stakeholders. These platforms will help their business run more efficiently, adequately address the needs of an evolving workforce, and drive consistency in service delivery for employees across the world.

Leveraging the Power of Low-Code to Decrease Time-to-Market

As manufacturers aim to deliver new, online service experiences for customers, they will have to look for ways to avoid high implementation costs and the longer times-to-market generally associated with solutions that are highly dependent on specialized IT resources. In such circumstances, low-code solutions are a great ally for CIOs as they can help non-IT users create and implement online experiences for customers in a timely manner.

Using Data for Better Decision-Making

Real-time visibility into the inner workings of an enterprise is key as comprehensive business intelligence (BI) and data analysis allow for sharper decision-making. Companies that prioritize digitization will gain a competitive edge as they can extract more data from their processes.

To succeed in digital transformation, Liferay experts recommend:

Building a one-stop shop to make information and intelligence accessible on any device, anywhere.

Unifying systems to enhance decision-making processes with data.

Making it easier for teams to visualize and draw actionable insights from data.

“Rising customer expectations, increased competition, and market disruptions caused by Big Data, Industry 4.0, and for the last three years – the pandemic – have forced the industry to shift their business models and refocus their IT investments. In 2023, manufacturers that focus on resilience, business continuity, and cost savings will have a better chance of emerging as leaders in the future,” said Jason Chang.