How to Turn Your Company into a Master of Digital Transformation
George Westerman, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Digital transformation is about much more than technology capability. Leadership capability is essential to guide a business through dramatic organizational change. Vision, an ability to bridge the IT/business divide, and effective governance all must go hand-in-hand.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Dr. George Westerman works at the intersection of executive leadership and technology strategy. He is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Principal Research Scientist for Workforce Learning at the MIT Jameel World Education Lab. Westerman has co-authored three award-winning books, including Leading Digital: Turning Technology Into Business Transformationand The Real Business of IT: How CIOs Create and Communicate Value.His writing, teaching, and consulting focus on helping leaders make sense of complex transformational challenges created by technological and market innovations.
Digital Transformation Isn’t Really a Technology Challenge
In recent months, much of the world has moved swiftly to confront the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which has infected and killed millions of people across the globe. The outbreak was a flare alerting us to systemic problems in our ability to adapt to a fast-moving threat that has disrupted everything in the global economy.
Organizations around the world moved quickly to digitally-distanced work processes, such as telemedicine, digital learning and working from home. But, while many adopted digital methods quickly, few were in a position to do it very well. They used technology to connect people but not to change what they did.
Likewise, every large business—in one way or another—is responding to the existential threat of digital disruption. The problem is that very few are doing it well. Most are adopting digital technology. But few have the capability to drive real transformation.
The best companies, which we call “Digital Masters,” do two things better than everyone else: They are better at putting digital technology into customer experience, operations and business models. And they are better at envisioning and driving organizational transformation over and over again. Of the two—digital capability and leadership capability— leadership is the most important. Perhaps now more than ever, digital transformation isn’t about being a digital company. It’s about being a better company because of digital.
Driving Change from the Top
The human side of the equation—the organizational and cultural aspects—are critical success factors in the digital transformation journey. In fast
