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While organizations are taking advantage of digital technologies, many economies remain digitally immature. Even though Accenture Strategy research estimates that the digital economy, involving some form of digital skills and digital capital, represents 22.5 percent of the world economy, digital’s ability to unlock value is far from being fully exploited.

Until now, it is the technology giants and born-digital companies that have taken advantage of digital disruption by realizing technology’s power and developing new platform business models to unleash hidden value. The approach has meant they have dominated in terms of growth, profits, and high market capitalizations—gains that have been invested back into new digital ecosystems. Today, there is an opportunity for traditional incumbents to more aggressively pursue new digital business models. By optimizing their digital investments, business leaders and policy makers can be more competitive, productive and bring quality of life to people.

Understanding where to make those investments to realize the greatest improvement in gross domestic product is the subject of recent analysis by Accenture Strategy and Oxford.

It was found that high-performing economies could realize better returns from the optimal combination of investments in digital skills, digital technologies and digital accelerators. For example, business and policy leaders may have invested heavily in digital technologies, but have neglected to prepare for the workforce of the future. Our modeling shows how the smarter use of digital skills, technologies and other assets could boost productivity and generate US$2 trillion of additional economic output by 2020.

In this way, digital investments can act as a growth multiplier in the coming years. Take the United States where adjustments in investments in digital skills, digital technologies and digital accelerators in line with our calculations could see the nation increase its gross domestic product by 2.1 percent—which equates to US$421 billion in 2020.

Business leaders and policy makers need to invest the right amounts in the right areas; by doing so, they can discover new profitable, scalable and sustainable ways to help their economies grow.

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