Decisively Digital

From Creating a Culture to Designing Strategy

Alexander Loth

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781119737285
• eBook ISBN: 9781119737292
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Commerce
• Subtopic: Commerce Général

Discover how to survive and thrive in an increasingly digital world

Digitalstrategyshould consist of more than just updating your business' desktop computers and buying the newest smartphones for your employees.It requires the reimagining of existing business processes and the implementation of the latest technologiesinto current business activity to enable new capabilities for your firm.

In Decisively Digital: From Creating a Culture to Designing Strategy, digital strategy advisorand author Alexander Loth leverages his extensive experience working with Microsoft, CERN, and SAP to deliver a robust and accessibleexploration of what it takes for a company to unlock the potential of new digital technologies.You'lldiscover how to:

• Utilize new technologiestoestablish a digital culture andrealize the benefits of modern work for your employees
• Unleash the abilities that come with processing big data and taking advantage ofdata democracy, analytics, andcloud computing
• Implement artificial intelligence, blockchain, process automation, and IoTin a way that goes beyond the hype and delivers real businessresults

Packed withinterviews with industry leaders and real-world customer examples, Decisively Digital is ideal for CIOs, CDOs, and other executives and professionals who need to know how technology can improve their businesses andpower results today and tomorrow.

Part I
Digital Strategy

Chapter 1
Introduction to Digital Strategy

The digital age is here to stay. Unfortunately, many organizations do not take advantage of its possibilities. Every industry is facing transformational change right now. And for many organizations, how they defined success yesterday is not how they are defining it today. For example, while growth may have been the only goal in the past, other metrics, such as a sustainability score, have become essential nowadays.

Having endless possibilities (and new competitive challenges), organizations are asking themselves how their businesses must evolve to survive and thrive. The answer to this question is digital strategy!

A digital strategy will lead the way for your organization to become part of the digital age, also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. “The changes are so profound that, from the perspective of human history, there has never been a time of greater promise or potential peril,” says Professor Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum. “My concern, however, is that decision-makers are too often caught in traditional, linear (and nondisruptive) thinking or too absorbed by immediate concerns to think strategically about the forces of disruption and innovation shaping our future.”¹

Organizations that have already embarked on their transformation journey are seeing the advantages. Disney, for example, produced hand-drawn movies in the past, relying on a very costly distribution system. Today Disney has gone completely digital, from movie production to the screen, leveraging the entire value chain. Disney's new digital endpoint, the streaming service Disney+, is even outperforming its own forecasts.²

With cloud-powered technologies, all organizations have access to AI-infused tools and modern work capabilities tailored to their needs. With scalability of implementation and speed of adoption, these organizations are seeing increased cost savings and more productive employees across all departments.

This is called digital maturity and is basically the sum of digital capabilities that are available in the organization. Every organization in every industry will increasingly need to level up their digital maturity to be successful and grow.

Strategic Topics

An organization's digital strategy is characterized by the application of new technologies to existing business activities and a focus on the enablement of new digital capabilities. These new digital capabilities can be clustered into five strategic topics (which form the structure of this book).

• Modern Work (Part II): How does technology change the way we work and communicate, and how does this change interfere with culture and strategy?
• Data Democracy and Analytics (Part III): How can every person achieve more by being enabled to access, understand, and communicate data?
• Big Data Processing and Cloud Computing (Part IV): How do we retrieve, store, and process vast amounts of data?
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) (Part V): How do intelligent agents take actions that maximize the chances of successfully achieving our business goals?
• Process Automation, Blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT) (Part VI): How does direct integration of the physical world into computer-based systems result in efficiency improvements, economic benefits, and reduced human exertions?

Data is treated as a key strategic asset, and organizations are committed to realizing value from it. Therefore, data democracy and analytics and big data processing and cloud computing can be collectively referred to as data strategy.

Culture

Henry Ford said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” This statement has probably never been as relevant as it is today. Many employees started working from home because of the COVID-19 pandemic as this book was being written. Micromanagement, which is characterized by mistrust, became obsolete, giving rise to a new, digital culture of trustful cooperation. Crafting and fostering culture within an organization is essential. Culture supports the digital strategy, enabling and empowering all people in an organization during transformational change.

Organizations are best fitted to go through a transformation when employees are unified and working with shared values and ideas. They have a cul...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword by Bernard Marr
• Introduction
• Part I: Digital Strategy
• Part II: Digital Culture and Modern Work
• Part III: Data Democracy and Analytics
• Part IV: Big Data Processing and Cloud Computing
• Part V: Artificial Intelligence
• Part VI: Process Automation, Blockchain, and the Internet of Things (IoT)
• Appendix: Reciprocity: Answering Some of My Own Questions
• Index
• End User License Agreement