More than half of the waste management and recycling organizations we surveyed for the AMCS Digital Transformation Benchmark 2018 were planning an increase in their IT budget in 2019. But where is the best place to apply that extra budget to get the most value in an organization’s digital transformation? A focus on these top digital solutions could provide the roadmap to digital transformation in 2019.

IT budget plans for 2019

Of the organizations we surveyed for the Digital Transformation Benchmark, more than 40% expect their revenues to increase by more than 10% in 2019. On average, these organizations tend to spend about 1.6% of their revenues on IT. Some 63% also expect this percentage to increase over the next few years.

In the survey, we also asked where an organization was better off investing, in IT or in more collection vehicles. Among those surveyed was a small but clear number of organizations that have achieved a higher level of success than the rest in implementing digital solutions. Interestingly, nearly 70% of this group believe that the best place to invest right now is in digital transformation rather than fleet size.

That strategy can be a smart one for a lot of organizations. Adding more vehicles to the fleet can certainly increase capacity, but it doesn’t necessarily optimize that capacity. Smart automation and intelligent digital solutions, on the other hand, can often mean more productivity from the same number of assets. So, it makes sense to optimize current capacity with more efficient processes. The advantage is then compounded when a fleet is eventually expanded because the productivity per vehicle is already higher.

Digital Transformation Roadmap in 2019 – where is the focus?

Of course, once there is agreement that investing the available budget in IT may be a smarter option than adding to the vehicle fleet right now, the next question is which IT solutions to invest in. Which digital solutions will deliver the most value and take the organization the furthest toward a digital transformation that will radically improve business performance and productivity?

The top 10 digital solutions that organizations in the Digital Transformation Benchmark survey are focusing on right now are:

1. ERP system
2. GPS monitoring
3. In-vehicle tablets
4. Digital invoicing
5. Paperless operations
6. Business intelligence & analytics
7. Digital payments
8. Self-service web portals
9. On-board computers
10. Route optimization

When we asked the most digitally advanced organizations what their focus has been, most said that their operations were now almost or completely paperless, that their invoicing systems are fully digitized, and that they are using business intelligence and analytics for important insights into improving their operations even more.

Digital Transformation Beyond 2019

These are the top digital solutions most organizations in our Digital Transformation Benchmark survey have listed in their 5-year plans:

1. Self-service portals
2. Business intelligence & analytics
3. Route management and optimization
4. Digital invoicing & payment systems
5. Paperless operations

The 2018 Digital Transformation Benchmark Report

For our 2018 Digital Transformation Benchmark, we surveyed organizations in the waste management and recycling industries in various geographical locations to uncover how the most successful are using technology to radically improve their performance, and which technologies add the most value for efficiency and productivity in their day-to-day operations.

The survey asked these key questions:

1. How do waste management organizations innovate and stay relevant?
2. What steps are waste management organizations taking toward digital transformation?
3. Which technologies are waste management organizations most interested in?

Want to see how your own organization rates against our 2018 benchmark? Download the full report at the bottom of the page and test your business.