SAN JOSE, Calif., January 29, 2024 – A new survey of global executives and IT leaders found customer value is a top strategic objective for the second year in a row. This focus on driving long term customer value is reflected in the 96 percent of respondents who report their companies have started a Value Stream Management (VSM) initiative. The third annual survey, sponsored by Broadcom and conducted by Dimensional Research, sought to understand VSM adoption as well as its alignment with addressing 2024 business, organizational, and customer value challenges.

In terms of growth, the survey found organizations are extending and expanding their VSM initiatives. Year-over-year data shows steady improvement of overall use of VSM from 2023 to 2024. More companies have moved from early planning into pilot initiatives and are increasing the use of VSM for product lines across the enterprise. In fact, 28 percent will have multiple product teams using VSM by the end of 2024, an important step forward in VSM maturity.

"It's encouraging to see more organizations making strides in their VSM initiatives," said Jean-Louis Vignaud, Head of ValueOps, Agile Operations Division, Broadcom. "VSM isn't a quick fix initiative; it's a journey. It takes time and effort to do it right, but when you do, it returns transformational improvements, and incredible ROI which is evident in the feedback from survey respondents. As teams realize the benefits of VSM and its positive impact on their business objectives, we anticipate even greater adoption and maturity throughout the enterprise."

VSM Benefits Address Top Business Challenges

Survey participants reported their top three business objectives are reducing expenses, increasing customer value, and growing profit margins. With these goals in mind, it's not surprising their top business challenges for this year are inefficient processes (49%), followed by collecting data, measuring customer value, and having siloed teams (all 40%).

Value stream management is uniquely suited to solving these challenges. The vast majority of survey respondents (96%) report they have already received benefits from VSM. In the top spot, nearly 40 percent said VSM is accelerating their digital transformation initiatives, which in turn drives efficiency through improved processes, communication, data and more. Tied for second at 33 percent is increased customer value and improved organizational alignment, followed by increased transparency (32%) and faster solution delivery (31%). 

According to a CIO at a leading financial institution interviewed for the survey, "Our VSM initiative is delivering a lot of benefits, more efficiency, more value to customers, better visibility of our process and a product's progress. Our employees feel more connected to the end product, which is the customer and not just a cog in a machine doing a task."

Challenges to VSM Success

The survey identified several issues that hinder organizations' chances of a successful VSM initiative.

Teams Struggle to Measure Customer Value

· Just five percent of respondents are measuring all six customer value metrics, as outlined in Broadcom's VSM Maturity Model.

· The top metric tracked is understanding customer happiness (68%), followed by adoption, sales, and customer support at 55 percent each. Fifty-four percent are tracking OKR, KPI, KPO data, and 33 percent are tracking social media to understand customer satisfaction.

· The 86 percent of respondents tracking four or fewer key metrics are lacking the data necessary to understand what value the customer is actually receiving and how they feel about it, leading to under-informed and biased decision-making.

Too Few Teams are Using VSM

· The right teams are involved – product management, software development and DevOps – but just half of organizations cite involvement from those teams.

· The lack of team involvement is a major issue, impeding efficiency, sustaining a siloed environment, and reducing visibility and alignment.

Ad Hoc Solution Deficiencies Inhibit VSM Effectiveness and Limit Business Benefits

• 80% share they don't have good visibility across their value streams.
• Half of companies don't have a solution to centralize product lifecycle data.
• Companies failing to leverage VSM data, thereby limiting business benefits.

To learn how value stream management drives digital transformation and customer value, download the complete research paper here.

Survey Methodology

Executives as well as IT and business leaders at enterprise companies representing all industries were invited to participate in a survey on their company's digital transformation initiative covering objectives, challenges, and solutions. A total of 511 qualified participants from five continents completed the survey.

About ValueOps by Broadcom

ValueOps™ by Broadcom is the industry's most complete Value Stream Management (VSM) solution. Combining robust business planning, agile delivery management, and value stream integration in one solution, ValueOps uniquely accelerates transformation by improving visibility, alignment, and efficiency at every stage of value creation.

With ValueOps, the seamless convergence of Clarity™, Rally®, ValueOps ConnectALL®, and ValueOps Insights in one solution empowers leaders at every level to plan, fund, manage, track, and optimize their work efforts using a common data model and value orientation. With the widest range of VSM features in the category, ValueOps has capabilities and insights to meet the needs of everyone in a value stream – effortlessly synchronizing them to align strategy, investments, people, and work across the enterprise.