‘Digital Transformation’ refers to the strategies and tools that ‘pre-digital’ organisations can adopt to re-envision, re-organise and re-optimise products, services, customer networks and business processes, leveraging new and emerging technologies, in order to compete with new, ‘digitally native’ enterprises.
‘Pre-digital’ organisations must adopt new strategies to capitalise on these new technologies, and to address the risk of disruption by new, unexpected, and agile competitors.
An extensive body of management theory has developed in the past ten years that can assist pre-digital organisations with their Digital Transformation strategy development. Companies that wish to transform themselves can readily access strategy tools and expertise to guide their transformation efforts.
The COVID pandemic has led to sharp acceleration in digital adoption across multiple industries and exacerbated the difference between best-performing and worst-performing organisations. 77% of chief executives believe the crisis will speed up their Digital Transformations but only 13% of leaders believe their organisations are ready for the digital age.
Whether an organisation is a large global enterprise, or a sole trader, tools and techniques are now available to assist them in radically transforming their capabilities, business models and customer relationships.
By adopting the strategies involved in Digital Transformation, and understanding that there is no end point to this transformation, organisations will equip themselves with the ability to evolve and adapt again as technologies change in the future.
This article is a short extract from a piece submitted by the author in September 2021 to University College Dublin’s Professional Academy