30+ Digital Transformation Case Studies & Success Stories [2024]

Updated on Feb 5

7 min read

Table of contents

Michelin-EFFIFUEL Schneider Electric-Box Thomas Pink-Fits.me

Digital transformation has been on the executive agenda for the past decade and ~90% of companies have already initiated their first digital strategy. However, given the increasing pace of technological innovation, there are numerous areas to focus on. A lack of focus leads to failed initiatives. Digital transformation leaders need to focus their efforts but they are not clear about in which areas to focus their digital transformation initiatives.

We see that digital transformation projects focusing on customer service and operations tend to be more heavily featured in case studies and we recommend enterprises to initially focus on digitally transforming these areas.

Research findings:

Outsourcing is an important strategy for many companies’ digital transformation initiatives.
Most successful digital transformation projects focus on customer service and operations

Michelin-EFFIFUEL

Michelin, a global tire manufacturer, launched its EFFIFUEL initiative in 2013 to reduce the fuel consumption of trucks. In this context, vehicles were equipped with telematics systems that collect and process data on the trucks, tires, drivers habits and fuel consumption conditions. By analyzing this data, fleet managers and executives at the trucking companies were able to make adjustments to reduce oil consumption.

Business challenge: Inability to improve customer retention rates to target levels, due to trucks’ fuel consumption and CO2 emissions.
Target customers: Fleet managers and operations managers at truck companies in Europe
Line of business function: Customer success management and sales.
Solution: By using smart devices, truck and tire performance degradation is detected and maintained from the start. The solution also nudges truck drivers into more cost and environmentally friendly driving.
Business result: Enhanced customer retention and satisfaction. EFFIFUEL has brought fuel savings of 2.5 liters per 100 kilometers per truck. The company also reduced the environmental costs of transportation activities. According to Michellin, if all European trucking companies had been using the EFFIFUEL initiative, it would have caused a 9 tons of CO2 emission reduction.

Schneider Electric-Box

Schneider Electric is a global company with employees all over the world. Prior to the Box initiative, which is a cloud-based solution, business processes were relatively slow because it is difficult to process the same documents from different locations at the same time. Schneider Electric also needed a way to provide data management and security for its globally dispersed workforce. So Schneider Electric outsourced its own custom cloud environment that integrates with Microsoft Office applications to Box. The platform also ensures tight control of corporate data with granular permissions, content controls and the use of shared links. Thanks to this initiative, the company has moved from 80% of its content hosted on-premises to 90% in the cloud and has a more flexible workforce.

Business challenge: Inability to increase operational efficiency of the global workforce without capitulating to data security.
Solution: Outsourcing company’s cloud-based platform to Box, that ensures data security and integration with Microsoft Office programs to ensure ease of doing business.
Business result: Schneider Electric connects its 142.000 workers within one platform which hosts 90% of its documents.

Thomas Pink-Fits.me

British shirt maker Thomas Pink, part of the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey group, has outsourced the development of its online sales platform to Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room. The aim of the initiative was to gain a competitive advantage over its competitors in e-commerce. Thanks to the online platform developed, customers can determine how well the shirt they are buying fits them by entering their body size.

The platform also helps Fits.me gain better customer insight as previously unknown customer data, including body measurements and fit preferences, becomes available. In this way, the platform can offer customers the clothes that fit them better.

Business challenge: Lack of visibility into online sales and customers’ preferences.
Target customers: Online buyers and users.
Line of business function: Sales and customer success management.
Solution: Outsourcing the development of the online platform to Fits.me Virtual Fitting Room .
Business result: Improved customer satisfaction and engagement. Thomas Pink reports that customers who enter the virtual fitting room are more likely to purchase a product than those who do not. There are many successful digital transformation projects from different industries, but we won’t go into every case study. Therefore, we provide you with a sortable list of 31 successful case studies. We categorized them as:

System Improvement: changing the way existing businesses work by introducing new technologies.
Innovation: creating new business practices, based on the latest technology.

Type of Project	Company	Initiative	Industry	Business Function	Case Study	Results
System Improvement	Apple	CarPlay	Automotive	Customer Service	Partnering with OEMs and apps such as Spotify to integrate an iPhone into vehicles' infotainment system	37 million sales estimation in 2020
System Improvement	Audi	Audi City	Automotive	Marketing and Sales	Transforming traditional showrooms into virtual showrooms with multi-touch tables, tablet-user interfaces and powerwalls.	At Audi City London sales went up 60%. Reducing the cost of having to hold a large volume of stock that often does not match a customer’s criteria.
Innovation	BMW	DriveNow	Automotive	Mobility Services	A car sharing service that promotes sustainable mobility with electric cars.	40% of the respondents said that they would have bought a car if DriveNow hadn’t been available. Reduction in CO2 emissions
Innovation	Daimler	Moovel	Automotive	Mobility Services	Bringing together various means of transport, and plans the best route from A to B, enabling customers to choose between a range of different transport options	Moovel has more than 1 million customers.
System Improvement	Michellin	EFFIFUEL	Automotive	Customer Service	A comprehensive ecosystem including sophisticated telematics, training in eco-driving techniques and optimized tyre management system.	A reduction in fuel consumption of 2.5 litres per 100km represents annual savings of €3,200 for long-haul transport
Innovation	Tesla		Automotive	Customer Service	Providing automatic over-the-air firmware updates that allow the car to improve safety, performance and infotainment capabilities remotely.	Saving $2.7 billion for manufacturers. Improving customer experience.
System Improvement	Thomas Pink	Fits.me	Retail	Operations	Virtual fitting rooms that collects customer data and uses it to match shoppers to garments that are right for them.	29.6% higher conversion rate
Innovation	Lego		Entertainment	Operations	Focusing on new revenue sources coming from movies, mobile games and mobile applications by leveraging digital technologies.	The first LEGO movie achieved revenues of approximately $468 million with a production budget of only $60 million.
System Improvement	General Electric	Digital Windfarm	Energy	Operations	Use of sensors, data networks and analytics create turbines that are customized for peak efficiency.	20% efficiency improvements, which could help generate up to an estimated $50 billion of value for the energy industry.
System Improvement	Schneider Electric	Box	Electricity	Operations	Using cloud-based solutions to meet the document sharing requirements of employees without compromising on centralized access or enterprise security standards.	Schneider has been able to offload its on premise file servers, cutting costs by 30%. Increased time-to-market by decreasing cycle times in sales, vendor order management, legal processes, employee records management and supply chain use cases.
Innovation	Hospitals*	Ginger.io	Healthcare	Operations	Providing a complete, centralized platform to track a health system’s equipment across all facilities	Each hospital is saving between $1 – 2 million in the earliest stages, and that total multiplies the longer a hospital uses the system.
Innovation	Cohealo		Healtcare	Operations	Using data from a patient’s everyday mobile usage (time spent on calls, text messages sent) and activity (distance travelled, sleep) to map patient behaviour and detect abnormalities by using AI.	Improving clinical outcomes while reducing healthcare costs.
Innovation	Pager		Healthcare	Customer Service	An app and web-based service that uses a location-based service to identify doctors in nearby areas for minor treatments within the home, office or hotel.	Prevents expensive hospital visits. Doctors can use time and resources more effectively.
System Improvement	Airbus		Transportation	Manufacturing	Using 3D printers for manufacturing plane parts	Decreasing the total energy used in production by up to 90%. Producing aircraft parts which weigh 30-55% less, while reducing raw materials used by 90%.
System Improvement	Disney	Disney's Magic Bands	Entertainment	Customer Service	Using smart wrist bands that contain RFID sensors to improve and personalize customer experiences in Disney World resorts.	Improved customer experience. Over 9 million visitors give positive feedback.
System Improvement	Spotify		Entertainment	Customer Service	Using listener data to predict, test, and deliver hit song playlists.	Improved customer experience. The platform had 157 million active users in 2018.
System Improvement	WeChat		Communication	Operations	Transforming a messaging app into a powerful multipurpose platform that focuses on socializing functions.	Improved customer experience
Innovation	Blippar		Technology	Operations	Combining augmented reality and image-recognition technology to bring the physical world to life through smartphones, tablets and wearables.	45% revenue growth.
System Improvement	Start-ups*	Bolt.io	Consulting	Operations	Bolt invests and distributes hardware to early stage start-ups to help them transform digitally in areas such as strategy, team building, capital raising, product development, customer development, manufacturing, distribution and marketing.	Shipped over 70 million units of 150+ SKUs of hardware products.
System Improvement	Duolingo		Education	Operations	Delivering personalized education through its AI-powered language-learning platform.	Improved customer experience. More than 100 million users.
System Improvement	Accredia		Accreditation	Customer service	Improve brand reputation and trust in the body through a web portal focused on user experience.	Increased web traffic. Users find the desired information quicker.
Innovation	EdgePetrol	Palladium**	Analytics/Oil	Product development	Developing and implementing a product strategy to develop a product designed to improve Petrol Retailer profit margins.	Agile development of MVP and on boarding of 3 key clients within 12 weeks
Innovation	Mayflex	Palladium**	Security	Operations	Developing digital strategy that includes profiling existing and future customers’ digital behaviour and expectations, understanding internal digital capability and identifying gaps and implementing digital tools to facilitate delivery of the pilot products.	The digital innovation pilot created £120+ sales pipeline in just 6 weeks
Innovation	Starbucks		Beverages	Operations	Leveraging data and developing a mobile app to build consumer intimacy.	Improved customer experience
System Improvement	Unilever		FMCG	Operations	Building a platform and analytics infrastructure to connect directly with consumers.	Launched 10 new brands in 2018. Each launch was 40%*50% quicker than traditional methods.
System Improvement	Keller Williams	KW Labs	Real Estate	Operations	Using data to empower agents all around the world with several AI-powered apps	Over 20% y-o-y sales volume increase
Innovation	IndusInd Bank		Banking	Operations	Creating digital branches and enabling social media banking transactions	Valued at approx.$1.5 billion and up 46% in value yoy
System Improvement	Monsanto	Climate FieldView	Climate/Agriculture	Operations	Using hardware and software intelligence to analyze weather patterns based on data collected through sensors.	Farmers benefit from better yields, lower risks and higher profitability.
System Improvement	BBVA		Banking	Customer Service	Providing enhanced customer experience with the help of knowledge-driven personalization and clear communication.	Active digital customers grew from 5 million in December 2011 to more than 13.3 million in mid-2015
System Improvement	Nokia	QPR ProcessAnalyzer	Telecommunication	Operations	Nokia uses QPR’s process mining tool to harmonize misaligned processes that are created when M&A transactions happened	Shortened lead time due to increased efficiency in running processes
System Improvement	Eneco Group (Joulz)	QPR Suite	Energy	Operations	Joulz want to maintain and expand the distribution grid while minimizing the amount of interruption minutes per customer connection, therefore, they implement QPR Suite.	Replacing the existing stack resulted in a structural saving of 75K Euro on software and maintenance every year and resource cost reduction of more than 15M Euro

If you are ready to start you digital transformation journey, you can check our data-driven and comprehensive list of digital transformation consultant companies.

To find out more about digital transformation, you can also read our digital transformation best practices, digital transformation roadmap and digital transformation culture articles.

You can also check our sustainability case studies article which include ESG related success stories.

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This article was drafted by former AIMultiple industry analyst Görkem Gençer.

Access Cem's 2 decades of B2B tech experience as a tech consultant, enterprise leader, startup entrepreneur & industry analyst. Leverage insights informing top Fortune 500 every month.

Cem has been the principal analyst at AIMultiple since 2017. AIMultiple informs hundreds of thousands of businesses (as per similarWeb) including 60% of Fortune 500 every month.

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Throughout his career, Cem served as a tech consultant, tech buyer and tech entrepreneur. He advised businesses on their enterprise software, automation, cloud, AI / ML and other technology related decisions at McKinsey & Company and Altman Solon for more than a decade. He also published a McKinsey report on digitalization.

He led technology strategy and procurement of a telco while reporting to the CEO. He has also led commercial growth of deep tech company Hypatos that reached a 7 digit annual recurring revenue and a 9 digit valuation from 0 within 2 years. Cem's work in Hypatos was covered by leading technology publications like TechCrunch and Business Insider.

Cem regularly speaks at international technology conferences. He graduated from Bogazici University as a computer engineer and holds an MBA from Columbia Business School.