Life in the Digital Vortex

The No. 1 spot belongs to the media and entertainment industry.

The media and entertainment industry has seen massive disruption across print media, social media, TV, music, and movies. The five most vulnerable industries – media and entertainment, technology products and services, retail, financial services, and telecommunications – remained unchanged in the new study.

Digital disruption is no longer an intangible event that may occur at some undefined point in the future. Roughly half of the surveyed executives report that digital disruption is already happening in meaningful terms in their industries, compared with only 15 percent in 2015 (see Figure below). Digitally driven market change is also quickly gaining the attention of C-level executives. In 2015, digital disruption was not deemed worthy of board-level attention in about 45 percent of companies. In 2017, only 17 percent feel this way.

Organizations’ willingness to respond to digital disruption, however, is improving, as shown in Figure below. In 2015, only 25 percent of executives claimed their organizations were actively responding to digital disruption. This number jumped to 31 percent in 2017. Nevertheless, 40 percent still feel their leaders do not understand the threat, or are responding inappropriately, only a slight improvement from 2015.