Going Digital First while Safeguarding the Physical Core: How an Automotive Incumbent Searches for Relevance in Disruptive Times

Incumbent firms typically face significant risk of losing the relevance of their physical core when facing industry disruption driven by digital technologies. Existing literature emphasizes a digital first approach, whereby firm offerings are fundamentally redeveloped from a digital point of view, from the point of conception. While this prescription can help accelerate innovation, it does not tell us how incumbents might safeguard the relevance of their traditional physical core resources when going digital first. This is important, since major discontinuities in strategic repositioning, while often celebrated in digital innovation and transformation literature, create significant risks to firm survival. To this end, we conduct a grounded analysis of a European automotive firm’s innovation journey over an eight-year period. We contribute to the digital innovation and transformation literature by developing a process model explaining how a digital first approach can be employed in a way that also safeguards the physical core

How Are Firms Measuring Digital Transformation at a Corporate-Level in Organisations?

The COVID-19 pandemic has made it imperative for many large firms to embark on a digital transformation journey, however there is still minimal understanding of how strategic performance is measured in transformative organizations. This paper lays the groundwork for better understanding how firms are measuring digital transformation. This is the first phase of a two-phase research initiative, supporting our intent of establishing the appropriate theoretical frameworks. The first phase included a systematic review of the leading companies by total revenue to understand the adoption of strategy performance management frameworks. This research-in-progress paper has generated initial insights, namely the emergence of the Objectives Key Results method among technology firms for both corporate and business-level strategic management, some evidence of a decline in use of the Balanced Scorecard for strategic-level management and a tendency for organisations to create digital innovation units for digital transformation

Strategic Thinking on Digital Economy to Promote the High-Quality Development of China’s Independent Innovation Demonstration zones

Based on the perspective of digital economy, this paper studies the high-quality development of national independent innovation demonstration zones, which provides new ideas for exploring and promoting the high-quality development of national independent innovation demonstration zones. The digital economy has an important driving effect on improving innovation efficiency, promoting industrial transformation and upgrading, and giving birth to new business formats, and has become a new driving force for the high-quality development of national independent innovation demonstration zones. On the basis of analyzing the driving effect of the digital economy and the characteristics of high-quality development of the national independent innovation demonstration zone, the role mechanism model of the high-quality development of the national independent innovation demonstration zone based on the digital economy is constructed, and the high-quality development process of the digital economy promoting the industrial transformation and upgrading, the optimization of the allocation of innovation factors, and the improvement of the innovation supply system of the national independent innovation demonstration zone are explored. In order to achieve the strategic goal of high-quality development of the national independent innovation demonstration zone, it puts forward countermeasures and suggestions that should improve the construction of digital infrastructure, strengthen the optimization of digital system, train and introduce digital talents, promote the integration of digital economy and real economy, and accelerate the process of digital industrialization

Challenges Concerning Data-Driven Innovation

Digital transformation is highly relevant to most organisations in the business and the government sectors. One important aspect of digital transformation is the capability to exploit data in order to develop new services. For a number of businesses, this capability has become an imperative to their survival in an ever more competitive market. Today, data exploitation is of vital importance for innovation and economic growth. However, there is a lack of consolidated knowledge about the challenges of managing processes for service innovation. The purpose of this study is to elaborate on challenges concerning data-driven service innovation. We have used the Grounded Theory approach to identify such challenges which are: lack of a systematic process, problems with data access, distrust of data, lack of appropriate digital tools and insufficient competence. Our conclusions reveal that data is rarely used as a strategic resource in data-driven service innovation and that there is a lack of data management

ORGANIZATIONAL READINESS FOR DIGITAL INTRAPRENEURSHIP: TOWARDS THE DESIGN OF AN ASSESSMENT TOOL

In today\u27s hyper-dynamic business environment, the capability to foster innovation is critical. Many organizations recognize their employees as an unresolved source for innovation during digital transformation. Consequently, intrapreneurship has become of strategic importance, and initiatives, such as digital intrapreneurship platforms, arise. However, many initiatives do not provide aspired outcomes due to the lack of organizational readiness. We follow the action design research method to design a multi-dimensional framework that measures organizational readiness for digital intrapreneurship. Hitherto, we identify 27 factors that contribute to an organization\u27s readiness for the successful implementation and usage of digital intrapreneurship platforms. Ultimately, we strive to provide a digital intrapreneurship readiness tool that helps innovation managers to detect and remove hindering factors before implementing solutions

Digital business evolution : lessons from a decade of KTP industry projects

Digital transformation is a daunting process for many business leaders, who sometimes find themselves in unfamiliar territory. This challenge is particularly prominent for resource-stretched and multi-skilled small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). This paper provides a context for this ongoing discussion, and drivers for transformation will be discussed together with the challenges business leaders are currently facing. Following this, we argue that a digital business can be viewed as an information system (IS) with six common subsystems; people, data, hardware, software, process and communication, that must interconnect effectively. Finally HINGE the project planning approach is introduced and how twelve knowledge transfer partnerships informed this approach. The paper highlights that digital transformation is becoming a necessity and offers a phased approach that enables business leaders to construct a systematic project plan that enables their enterprise to reach new levels of digital maturity in a holistic and meaningful way. Keywords: digital transformation, digital innovation, strategic change, SMEs, KTP

Disruptive Business Model Innovation and Digital Transformation

Background: Innovating how organisations run their business is a strategic decision to create more value for customers using or consuming the product and/or service provided. In addition to the incentive of everybody embracing digital transformation, digital technologies, and digital innovation, which frame changes of operating business models today, disruptions, i.e., another incentive that occurs suddenly and impacts globally, all force businesses to adapt and change. Objectives: This research aims to provide a conceptual model that can be used for organisations to evaluate and propose feasible options for responding to disruptions that influence the businesses’ strategic innovation initiatives while assisting decision-makers in choosing the most appropriate option. Methods/Approach: Considering internal and external factors that influence digital transformation, the conceptual framework is designed to assess readiness and willingness to transform and create opportunities for future success digitally. Results: A conceptual framework was developed, tested, and demonstrated in a case study. The case study organisation rated positively the composition of steps to be perf readiness and willingness and choose the most feasible option to change. Conclusions: The digital environment and the influence of disruptions force organisations to change. The conceptual framework developed in this research helps the management choose the most feasible change option about the real as-is and the desired to-be state

The Fuzzy Front-End of Digital Transformation: Three Perspectives on the Formulation of Organizational Change Strategies

The fuzzy front-end describes the random and generally vague initial stages of an innovation project. Since digital transformation can be seen as innovation process of an organization, improving the initial stages can be beneficial for the entire process. This literature review takes the unique perspective of the fuzzy front-end within digital transformation. Characteristics of and challenges in formulating of organizational change strategies are reviewed in three different domains: information systems (IS), management & strategy (MS), and organization science (OS). The results show that within IS, the role of information systems has changed from a process-oriented to a more strategic role and digital technology skills become more important during strategy formulation. Within MS, there is a strong focus on interpreting external signals and reacting to them. In OS, the formulation of a change strategy is seen as a collaborative process between leadership and the workforce. The results from this review should encourage the research on digital transformation to focus to a greater extent on the initial phase of strategy formulation

Proposing a New Managerial Model for Digital Transformation

Digital transformation is a gateway to innovation and new models of organization, operations, and business models. The quick response of managers and leaders is becoming the key to successful digital transformation, followed by strategic flexibility according to data testing results. These results highlight the importance of agile leadership in today’s changing organizational environment (Fachrunnisa et al., (2020). Hence why it is imperative to take into consideration all employees’ perceptions of management to avoid resistance to change. Thus, in this research paper, we analyze the current managerial environment to better guide digital transformation through a survey destined for both managers and employees, assessing the current situation of organizational management from a diversity of perspectives. We then propose a new digital transformation managerial model based on significant correlations between the models’ variables using the Chi-squared test. &nbsp

Transforming the construction sector: an institutional complexity perspective

Purpose Government initiatives to improve construction have increasingly become more focused on introducing a repertoire of technologies to transform the sector. In the literature on construction industry transformation through policy-backed initiatives, how firms will respond to the demands to adopt and use innovative technologies and approaches is taken for granted, and there is scarcely any attention given to the institutional implications of transformation agenda. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these gaps and offer directions for future research. Design/methodology/approach Following a synthesis of literature on the UK’s industry transformation agenda, the authors use the concepts of institutional logics, arrangements, complexity and strategic responses to suggest seven research questions that are at the nexus of policy-backed transformation and institutional theory. Findings In this paper, the authors argue that increasing demands for the adoption and use of digital technologies, platforms, manufacturing approaches and other “industry-4.0”-related technologies will reconfigure existing logics and arrangements in the construction industry, creating a problem of institutional complexity for general contracting firms in particular. Originality/value The questions are relevant for our understanding of the nature of institutional complexities, change, strategic firm responses, field-level dynamics and implications for the construction industry in relation to the transformation agenda. This paper is positioned to spur future research towards exploring the consequences of industry transformation through the lens of institutional theory. This research forms part of the Centre for Digital Built Britain’s (CDBB) work at the University of Cambridge within the Construction Innovation Hub (CIH). The Construction Innovation Hub is funded by UK Research and Innovation through the Industrial Strategy Fund