Companies should assess their position along the digital innovation continuum to determine if they're bleeding edge, leading edge, middle of the pack or laggards – and then take steps to ensure they are on the leading edge of technology, says Scott Klososky, owner of the consulting firm Future Point of View.

That's because companies in the sweet spot – the leading edge – are 26 percent more profitable than their competitors, Klososky told attendees of the 2015 Power Transmission Distributors Association Industry Summit in Chicago last month.

The bleeding edge is too far ahead of the technology curve, with companies up to four years advanced compared to the rest of the industry. The middle of the pack is where most of the market exists. And laggards are two years behind the technology curve.

But companies that deploy the right amount of digital innovation – roughly a two-year lead on technology – can achieve profit amplification, the simultaneous act of increasing sales and lowering costs.

That digital differentiation begins with leadership. As Klososky told the PTDA crowd, "tomorrow is a battleground you must not lose, and what I try to get leaders to understand is the battle for tomorrow is fought today."

"Too many leaders fight tomorrow's battle tomorrow and it doesn't work that way," he said. "You win tomorrow by sitting down today and saying, 'Do I have good technologists around me? Do I have a really good strategy put in place? Do we have good technology governance? Do I have good cyber security? Do I know how to use data well?'

"There's a list of questions you have to be able to answer, and that creates an environment in which you'll do technology well, and then you win the future."