With many employees now permanently in remote or hybrid situations, business leaders must adapt to and drive growth in a new environment. A survey-conducted by Forbes Insights and Adobe-of 505 senior digital and technology executives (known collectively as chief information officers, or Clos) from North America and Europe shows that mastering employee and customer-facing workflows may be the most critical success factor.

Most organizations have used workflow automation programs in some form or another for years (such as the enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management systems of the 1980s and 1990s), but the Covid-19 pandemic has thrust them into the limelight as a solution to a burgeoning problem: a near-complete transformation of the workplace. Businesses have always had remote or virtual workforces, but they were never as widespread as they are now-or as likely to pose challenges to security, collaboration and innovation.

This report summarizes key research findings on CIOs' current and future use of digital workflows, their priorities and their role in driving transformation and the strategic growth of the enterprise. The report identifies a subset of organizations with behaviors and characteristics that lead to superior performance outcomes, such as higher productivity, better collaboration, more efficient operations, improved customer experience metrics and higher security.