What Successful Digital Transformations Have in Common | HBR

December 28, 2017

We found six important and statistically robust factors that predict the probability that an incumbent company will choose the path of being a reinventor. They are, in order of importance:

1. Obsess about turbulence on the horizon
2. Understand all risks, not only those from startups
3. Deliver a dual offensive: core and diversification
4. Fix leadership skills first
5. Prioritize demand-centered business play
6. Experiment with frontier technologies

Source: What Successful Digital Transformations Have in Common | HBR, Jacques Bughin & Tanguy Catlin, December 19, 2017

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The growing power of disruption and technology

December 22, 2017

“Our world is in transition from a model of business we are familiar with to one that is in many instances still undefined,” added Uschi Schreiber, EY’s global vice chair for markets and chair of the firm’s global accounts committee.

“The pace of change is unprecedented. Too many CEOs and boards are still focused on only one thing: short term efficiency and productivity improvements. But what’s needed is also a focus on the medium term and on building the future,” he said. “This requires not just the use of up-to-date technology; it also means investing in innovation and being prepared to take some risks. Thinking and operating in duality can help corporations to seize the upside of disruption by focusing on their current success and growth as well as building the foundations for growth in the future.”

Two-thirds of respondents to Deloitte’s poll for that report associate technology advances with new opportunities and positive outcomes, with “emerging technologies” integral to the playbooks of private companies.

Source: The growing power of disruption and technology, Sean Kilcarr, December 20, 2017

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Digital Transformation. Many can talk about the “why”. Few can talk about the “how”. Here’s “How” | LinkedIn

December 22, 2017

For companies to build value and provide compelling customer experiences at lower cost, they need to commit to a next-generation operating model. This operating model is a new way of running the organization that combines digital technologies and operations capabilities in an integrated, well-sequenced way to achieve step-change improvements in revenue, customer experience, and cost.

Source: Digital Transformation. Many can talk about the “why”. Few can talk about the “how”. Here’s “How” | LinkedIn, Hans Casteels, December 20, 2017

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What Your Innovation Process Should Look Like | HBR

October 11, 2017

When organizations lack a formal innovation pipeline process, project approvals tend to be based on who has the best demo or slides, or who lobbies the hardest. There is no burden on those who proposed a new idea or technology to talk to customers, build minimal viable products, test hypotheses or understand the barriers to deployment. And they count on well-intentioned, smart people sitting in a committee to decide which ideas are worth pursuing.

Instead, what organizations need is a self-regulating, evidence-based innovation pipeline. Instead of having a committee vet ideas, they need a process that operates with speed and urgency, and that helps innovators and other stakeholders to curate and prioritize problems, ideas, and technologies.

Source: What Your Innovation Process Should Look Like | HBR, Steve Blank, Pete Newell, September 11, 2017

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The Board Directors You Need for a Digital Transformation | HBR

July 14, 2017
  • Digital thinker. The director has had little direct interaction with digital as an operator but conceptually understands the digital environment. They have been a board director or adviser in a digital business but are not a digital native.
  • Digital disruptor. The director has been deeply embedded in digital, often with experience from a pure-play company. This type of leader typically has less general management breadth.
  • Digital leader. The director has had substantial experience running a traditional business that leverages digital in a significant way (retail or media, for example). It’s likely that this person has less hands-on digital experience but has managed disruption as a general manager.
  • Digital transformer. The director has led or participated in a transformation of a traditional business. Typically the person does not have the seniority of a digital leader but is more digitally astute.

Digital transformation needs to be wholesale. Digital innovation needs to permeate and recast every aspect of the business and the board. Companies that do so will thrive in the new world, and those that do not, sooner or later, will fail.

Source: The Board Directors You Need for a Digital Transformation | HBR

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The case for digital reinvention | McKinsey & Company

February 12, 2017

This finding confirms what many executives may already suspect: by reducing economic friction, digitization enables competition that pressures revenue and profit growth. Current levels of digitization have already taken out, on average, up to six points of annual revenue and 4.5 points of growth in earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT). And there’s more pressure ahead, our research suggests, as digital penetration deepens.

Source: The case for digital reinvention | McKinsey & Company

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25% of CEOs’ Time Is Spent on Tasks Machines Could Do | Harvard Business Review

February 6, 2017

Like President Johnson in the 1960s, we see that automation could make a major contribution to productivity and prosperity… For companies around the world, automation will offer the potential to capture substantial value — and not just from labor substitution. These technologies enable higher throughput, enhanced quality, better outcomes, greater safety, and the opportunity to scale up or adopt new business models.

Source: 25% of CEOs’ Time Is Spent on Tasks Machines Could Do

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