Define Your Digital Business Strategy

Define Your Digital Business Strategy

After a major crisis, find your place in the digital economy.

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Analyst Perspective

Build business resilience and prepare for a digital economy.

Dana Daher
Senior Research Analyst

To survive one of the greatest economic downturns since the Great Depression, organizations had to accelerate their digital transformation by engaging with the Digital Economy. To sustain growth and thrive as the pandemic eases, organizations must focus their attention on building business resilience by transforming how they deliver value today.
This requires a value-driven approach to digital transformation that is capable of identifying what aspects of the business to transform, what technologies to embrace, what processes to automate, and what new business models to create. And most importantly, it needs to unify digital possibilities with your customer experiences.
If there was ever a time for an organization to become a digital business, it is today.

Executive Summary

Your Challenge

• Your organization has difficulty adapting new technologies or rethinking the existing business models.
• Your management lacks a framework to rethink how your organization delivers value today, which causes annual planning to become an ideation session that lacks focus.
• There is uncertainty on how to meet evolving customer needs and how to compete in a digital economy.

Common Obstacles

• Your organization might approach digital transformation as if we were still in 2019, not recognizing that the pandemic resulted in a major shift to an end-to-end digital economy.
• Your senior-most leadership thinks digital is "IT's problem" because digital is viewed synonymously with technology.
• On the other hand, your IT team lacks the authority to make decisions without the executives’ involvement in the discussion around digital.

Info-Tech’s Approach

• Design a strategy that applies innovation to your business model, streamline and transform processes, and make use of technologies to enhance interactions with customers and employees.
• Use digital for transforming non-routine cognitive activities and for de-risking key elements of the value chain.
• Create a balanced roadmap that improves digital maturity and prepares you for long-term success in a digital economy.

Info-Tech Insight

After a major crisis, focus on restarting the growth engine and bolstering business resilience.

Your digital business strategy aims to transform the business

Digital Business Strategy

• Looks for ways to transform the business by identifying what technologies to embrace, what processes to automate, and what new business models to create.
• Unifies digital possibilities with your customer experiences.
• Accountability lies with the executive leadership.
• Must involve cross-functional participation from senior management from the different areas of the organization.

IT Strategy

• Aims to identify how to change, fix, or improve technology in support of the organization’s business strategy.
• Accountability lies with the CIO.
• Must involve IT management and gather strategic input from the business.

Becoming a digital business

Automate tasks to free up time for innovation.

Business activities (tasks, procedures, and processes, etc.) are used to create, sell, buy, and deliver goods and services.

When we convert information into a readable format used by computers, we call this digitization (e.g. converting paper into digital format). When we convert these activities into a format to be processed by a computer, we have digitalization (e.g. scheduling appointments online).

These two processes alter how work takes place in an organization and form the foundation of the concept digital transformation.

We maintain that digital transformation is all about becoming a “digital business” – an organization that performs more than 66% of all work activities via executable code.

As organizations take a step closer to this optimal state, new avenues are open to identify advances to promote growth, enhance customer experiences, secure sustainability, drive operational efficiencies, and unearth potential future business ventures.

Key Concepts:

Digital: The representation of a physical item in a format used by computers

Digitization: Conversion of information and processes into a digital format

Digitalization: Conversion of information into a format to be processed by a computer

Why transform your business?

COVID-19 has irrefutably changed livelihoods, businesses, and the economy. During the pandemic, digital tools have acted as a lifeline, helping businesses and economies survive, and in the process, have acted as a catalyst for digital transformation.

As organizations continue to safeguard business continuity and financial recovery, in the long term, recovery won’t be enough.

Although many pandemic/recession recovery periods have occurred before, this next recovery period will present two first-time challenges no one has faced before. We must find ways to:

• Recover from the COVID-19 recession.
• Compete in a digital economy.

To grow and thrive in this post-pandemic world, organizations must provide meaningful and lasting changes to brace for a future defined by digital technologies. – Dana Daher, Info-Tech Research Group

We are amid an economic transformation

What we are facing today is a paradigm shift transforming the ways in which we work, live, and relate to one another.

In the last 60 years alone, performance and productivity have been vastly improved by IT in virtually all economic activities and sectors. And today, digital technologies continue to advance IT's contribution even further by bringing unprecedented insights into economic activities that have largely been untouched by IT.

As technological innovation and the digitalization of products and services continue to support economic activities, a fundamental shift is occurring that is redefining how we live, work, shop, and relate to one another.

These rapid changes are captured in a new 21st century term:

The Digital Economy.

90% of CEOs believe the digital economy will impact their industry. But only 25% have a plan in place. – Paul Taylor, Forbes, 2020

Analyst Perspective

Become a Digital Business

Kenneth McGee
Research Fellow

Today, the world faces two profoundly complex, mega-challenges simultaneously:

1. Ending the COVID-19 pandemic and recession.
2. Creating strategies for returning to business growth.

Within the past year, healthcare professionals have searched for and found solutions that bring real hope to the belief the global pandemic/recession will soon end.

As progress towards ending COVID-19 continues, business professionals are searching for the most effective near-term and long-term methods of restoring or exceeding the rates of growth they were enjoying prior to 2020.

We believe developing a digital business strategy can deliver cost savings to help achieve near-term business growth while preparing an enterprise for long-term business growth by effectively competing within the digital economy of the future.

The Digital Economy

The digital economy refers to a concept in which all economic activity is facilitated or managed through digital technologies, data, infrastructure, services, and products (OECD, 2020).

The digital economy captures decades of digital trends including:

• Declining enterprise computing costs
• Improvements in computing power and performance; unprecedent analytic capabilities
• Rapid growth in network speeds, affordability, and geographic reach
• High adoption rates of PCs, mobile, and other computing devices

These trends among others have set the stage to permanently alter how buying and selling will take place within and between local, regional, national, and international economies.

The emerging digital economy concept is so compelling that the world economists, financial experts, and others are currently investigating how they must substantially rewrite the rules governing how taxes, trade, tangible and intangible assets, and countless other financial issues will be assessed and valued in a digital economy.

Download Info-Tech’s Digital Economy Report

Signals of Change

The digital economy captures technological developments transforming the way in which we live, work, and socialize

Technological evolution

Info-Tech’s approach to digital business strategy

A path to thrive in a digital economy.

1. Identify top value chains to be transformed
2. Identify a digitally enabled growth opportunity
3. Transform stakeholder journeys
4. Build a digital transformation roadmap

Info-Tech Insight

Pre-pandemic digital strategies have been primarily focused on automation. However, your post-pandemic digital strategy must focus on driving resilience for growth opportunities.

The Info-Tech difference:

• Understand how your organization creates value today to identify opportunities for digital transformation.
• Leverage strategic foresight to evaluate how complex trends can evolve over time and identify opportunities to leapfrog competitors.
• Design a journey map to empathize with your customers and identify opportunities to streamline or enhance existing and new experiences.
• Create a balanced roadmap that improves digital maturity and prepares you for long-term success in a digital economy.

A digital transformation starts by transforming how you deliver value today

As digital transformation is an effort to transform how you deliver value today, it is important to understand the different value-generating activities that deliver an outcome for and from your customers.

We do this by looking at value streams –which refer to the specific set of activities an industry player undertakes to create and capture value for and from the end consumer (and so the question to ask is, how do you make money as an organization?).

Our approach helps you to digitally transform those value streams that generate the most value for your organization.

Higher Education Value stream

Recruitment → Admission → Student Enrolment → Instruction & Research → Graduation → Advancement

Local Government Value Stream

Sustain Land, Property, and the Environment → Facilitate Civic Engagement → Protect Local Health and Safety → Grow the Economy → Provide Regional Infrastructure

Manufacturing Value Stream

Design Product → Produce Product → Sell Product

Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to identify your industry’s value streams

Assess your external environment to identify new value generators

Assessing your external environment allows you to identify trends that will have a high impact on how you deliver value today.

Traditionally, a PESTLE analysis is used to assess the external environment. While this is a helpful tool, it is often too broad as it identifies macro trends that are not relevant to an organization's addressable market. That is because not every factor that affects the macro environment (for example, the country of operation) affects a specific organization’s industry in the same way.

And so, instead of simply assessing the macro environment and trying to project its evolution along the PESTLE factors, we recommend to:

• Conduct a PESTLE first and deduce, from the analysis, what are possible shifts in six characteristics of an organization’s industry, or
• Proceed immediately with identifying evolutionary trends that impact the organization’s direct market.

Info-Tech Insight

While PESTLE is helpful to scan the macro environment, the analysis often lacks relevance to an organization’s industry.

An analysis of evolutionary shifts in five industry-specific characteristics would be more effective for identifying trends that impact the organization

A Market Evolution Trend Analysis (META) identifies changes in prevailing market conditions that are directly relevant to an organization’s industry, and thus provides some critical input to the strategy design process, since these trends can bring about strategic risks or opportunities.
Shifts in these five characteristics directly impact an organization:

ORGANIZATION

• Customer Expectations
• Talent Availability
• Regulatory System
• Supply Chain Continuity
• Technological Landscape

Capture existing and new value generators through a customer journey map

As we prioritize value streams, we break them down into value chains – that is the “string” of processes that interrelate that work.

However, once we identify these value chains and determine what parts we wish to digitally transform, we take on the perspective of the user, as the way they interact with your products and services will be different to the view of those within the organization who implement and provide those services.

This method allows us to build an empathetic and customer-centric lens, granting the capability to uncover challenges and potential opportunities. Here, we may define new experiences or redesign existing ones.

A digital transformation is not just about customer journeys but also about building business resilience

Pre-pandemic, a digital transformation was primarily focused around improving customer experiences. Today, we are facing a paradigm shift in the way in which we capture the priorities and strategies for a digital transformation.

As the world grows increasingly uncertain, organizations need to continue to focus on improving customer experience while simultaneously protecting their enterprise value.

Ultimately, a digital transformation has two purposes:

1. The classical model – whereby there is a focus on improving digital experiences.
2. Value protection or the reduction of enterprise risk by systematically identifying how the organization delivers value and digitally transforming it to protect future cashflows and improve the overall enterprise value.

Key deliverable:

Digital Business Strategy Presentation Template

A highly visual and compelling presentation template that enables easy customization and executive-facing content.

*Coming in 2022

Blueprint deliverables

The Digital Business Strategy Workbook supports each step of this blueprint to help you accomplish your goals:

Initiative Prioritization

Use the weighted scorecard approach to evaluate and prioritize your opportunities and initiatives.

Roadmap Gantt Chart

Populate your Gantt chart to visually represent your key initiative plan over the next 12 months.

Journey Mapping Workbook

Populate the journey maps to evaluate a user experience over its end-to-end journey.

Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs

DIY Toolkit

“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”

Guided Implementation

“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”

Workshop

“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”

Consulting

“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”

Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options

Guided Implementation

What does a typical GI on this topic look like?

A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
A typical GI is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 2 to 4 months.

Workshop Requirements

Business Inputs

Gather business strategy documents and find information on:

• Business goals
• Current transformation initiatives
• Business capabilities to create or enhance
• Identify top ten revenue and expense generators
• Identify stakeholders

Interview the following stakeholders to uncover business context information:

• CEO
• CIO

Download the Business Context Discovery Tool

Optional Diagnostic

• Assess your digital maturity (Concierge Service)

Visit Assess Your Digital Maturity

Phase 1

Identify top value chains to be transformed

• Understand the business
• Assess your business ecosystem
• Identify two value chains for transformation

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Understand how your organization delivers value today and identify value chains to be transformed.

This phase involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across all levels of the organization.

Outcomes

• Business ecosystem
• Existing value chains to be transformed

Step 1.1

Understand the business

Activities

• Review business documents.

Identify top value chains to be transformed

This step will walk you through the following activities:

In this section you will gain an understanding of the business context for your strategy.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

Business Context

Understand the business context

Understanding the business context is a must for all strategic initiatives. A pre-requisite to all strategic planning should be to elicit the business context from your business stakeholders.

1.1 Understand the business context

Objective: Elicit the business context with a careful review of business and strategy documents.

1. Gather the strategy creation team and review your business context documents. This includes business strategy documents, interview notes from executive stakeholders, and other sources for uncovering the business strategy.
2. Brainstorm in smaller groups answers to the question you were assigned:
   • What are the strengths and weaknesses of the organization?
   • What are some areas of improvement or opportunity?
   • What does it mean to have a digital business strategy?
3. Discuss the questions above with participants and document key findings. Share with the group and work through the balanced scorecard questions to complete this exercise.
4. Document your findings.

Assess your digital readiness with Info-Tech’s Digital Maturity Assessment

Input

• Business Strategy Documents
• Executive Stakeholder Interviews

Output

• Business Context Information

Materials

• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• Executive Team

Step 1.2

Assess your business ecosystem

Activities

• Identify disruptors and incumbents.

Info-Tech Insight

Your digital business strategy cannot be formulated without a clear vision of the evolution of your industry.

Identify top value chains to be transformed

This step will walk you through the following activities:

In this section, we will assess who the incumbents and disruptors are in your ecosystem and identify who your stakeholders are.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

Business Ecosystem

Assess your business ecosystem

Understand the nature of your competition.

Learn what your competitors are doing.

To survive, grow, or transform in today's digital era, organizations must first have a strong pulse on their business ecosystem. Learning what your competitors are doing to grow their bottom line is key to identifying how to grow your own. Start by understanding who the key incumbents and disruptors in your industry are to identify where your industry is heading.

Incumbents: These are established leaders in the industry that possess the largest market share. Incumbents often focus their attention to their most demanding or profitable customers and neglect the needs of those down market.

Disruptors: Disruptors are primarily new entrants (typically startups) that possess the ability to displace the existing market, industry, or technology. Disruptors are often focused on smaller markets that the incumbents aren’t focused on. (Clayton Christenson, 1997)

’Disruption’ specifically refers to what happens when the incumbents are so focused on pleasing their most profitable customers that they neglect or misjudge the needs of their other segments.– Ilan Mochari, Inc., 2015

Example Business Ecosystem Analysis

1.2 Understand your business ecosystem

Objective: Identify the incumbents and disruptors in your business ecosystem.

1. Identify the key incumbents and disruptors in your business ecosystem.
   • Incumbents: These are established leaders in the industry that possess the largest market share.
   • Disruptors: Disruptors are primarily new entrants (startups) that possess the ability to displace the existing market, industry, or technology.
2. Identify target market and key customers. Who are the primary beneficiaries of your products or service offerings? Your key customers are those who keep you in business, increase profits, and are impacted by your operations.
3. Identify what their core products or services are. Assess what core problem their products solve for key customers and what key features of their solution support this.
4. Assess what the competitors' key differentiators are. There are many differentiators that an organization can have, examples include product, brand, price, service, or channel.
5. Identify what the organization’s value proposition is. Why do customers come to them specifically? Leverage insights from the key differentiators to derive this.
6. Finally, assess how your organization derives value relative to your competitors.

Input

• Market Assessment

Output

• Key Incumbents and Disruptors

Materials

• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• Executive Team

Step 1.3

Value-chain prioritization

Activities

• Identify and prioritize value chains for innovation.

Identify top value chains to be transformed

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Identify and prioritize how your organization currently delivers value today and identify value chains to be transformed.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

Prioritized Value Chains

Determine what value the organization creates

Identify areas for innovation.

Value streams and value chains connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities. They enable an organization to create and capture value in the market place by engaging in a set of interconnected activities. Those activities are dependent on the specific industry segment an organization operates within.

Different types of value your organization creates

Value Streams

A value stream refers to the specific set of activities an industry player undertakes to create and capture value for and from the end consumer.

Value Chains

A value chain is a ”string” of processes within a company that interrelate and work together to meet market demand. Examining the value chain of a company will reveal how it achieves competitive advantage.

Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to identify value streams

Begin with understanding your industry’s value streams

Value Streams

Recruitment

• The promotion of the institution and the communication with prospective students is accommodated by the recruitment component.
• Prospective students are categorized as domestic and international, undergraduate and graduate. Each having distinct processes.

Admission

• Admission into the university involves processes distinct from recruitment. Student applications are processed and evaluated and the students are informed of the decision.
• This component is also concerned with transfer students and the approval of transfer credits.

Student Enrolment

• Student enrolment is concerned with matriculation when the student first enters the institution, and subsequent enrolment and scheduling of current students.
• The component is also concerned with financial aid and the ownership of student records.

Instruction & Research

• Instruction involves program development, instructional delivery and assessment, and the accreditation of courses of study.
• The research component begins with establishing policy and degree fundamentals and concerns the research through to publication and impact assessment.

Graduation

• Graduation is not only responsible for the ceremony but also the eligibility of the candidate for an award and the subsequent maintenance of transcripts.

Advancement

• Alumni relations are the first responsibility of advancement. This involves the continual engagement with former students.
• Fundraising is the second responsibility. This includes the solicitation and stewardship of gifts from alumni and other benefactors.

Value stream defined…

Value streams connect business goals to the organization’s value realization activities in the marketplace. Those activities are dependent on the specific industry segment in which an organization operates.

There are two types of value streams: core value streams and support value streams.

• Core value streams are mostly externally facing. They deliver value to either an external or internal customer and they tie to the customer perspective of the strategy map.
• Support value streams are internally facing and provide the foundational support for an organization to operate.

An effective method for ensuring all value streams have been considered is to understand that there can be different end-value receivers.

Leverage your industry’s capability maps to identify value chains

Business Capability Map Defined

A business capability defines what a business does to enable value creation, rather than how. Business capabilities:

• Represent stable business functions.
• Are unique and independent of each other.
• Typically, will have a defined business outcome.

A capability map is a great starting point to identify value chains within an organization as it is a strong indicator of the processes involved to deliver on the value streams.

Info-Tech Insight

Leverage your industry reference architecture to define value streams and value chains.

Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to identify value streams

Prioritize value streams to be supported or enhanced

Use an evaluation criteria that considers both the human and business value generators that these streams provide.

Info-Tech Insight

To produce maximum impact, focus on value streams that provide two-thirds of your enterprise value.

Business Value

Assess the value generators to the business, e.g. revenue dollars, enterprise value, cost or differentiation (competitiveness), etc.

Human Value

Assess the value generators to people, e.g. student/faculty satisfaction, well-being, and social cohesion.

Identify value chains for transformation

Value chains, pioneered by the academic Michael Porter, refer to the ”string” of processes within a company that interrelate and work together to meet market demand. An organization’s value chain is connected to the larger part of the value stream. This perspective of how value is generated encourages leaders to see each activity as a part of a series of steps required deliver value within the value stream and opens avenues to identify new opportunities for value generation.

Prioritize value chains for transformation

Once we have identified the key value chains within each value stream element, evaluate the individual processes within the value chain to identify opportunities for transformation. Evaluate the value chain processes based on the level of pain experienced by a stakeholder to accomplish that task, and the financial impact that level of the process has on the organization.

1.3 Value chain analysis

Objective: Determine how the organization creates value, and prioritize value chains for innovation.

1. The first step of delivering value is defining how it will happen. Use the organization’s industry segment to start a discussion on how value is created for customers. Working back from the moment value is realized by the customer, consider the sequential steps required to deliver value in your industry segment.
2. Define and validate the organization’s value stream. Write a short description of the value stream that includes a statement about the value provided and a clear start and end for the value stream.
3. Prioritize the value streams based on an evaluation criteria that reflects business and human value generators to the organization.
4. Identify value chains that are associated with each value stream. The value chains refer to a string of processes within the value stream element. Each value chain also captures a particular stakeholder that benefits from the value chain.
5. Once we have identified the key value chains within each value stream element, evaluate the individual processes within the value chain and identify areas for transformation. Evaluate the value chain processes based on the level of pain or exposure to risk experienced by a stakeholder to accomplish that task and the financial impact that level of the process has on the organization.

Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to identify value streams and capability maps

Input

• Market Assessment

Output

• Key Incumbents and Disruptors

Materials

• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• Executive Team

Phase 2

Identify a digitally enabled growth opportunity

• Conduct horizon scan
• Identify leapfrog idea
• Conduct value chain impact analysis

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Assess trends that are impacting your industry and identify strategic growth opportunities.

This phase involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes

Identify new growth opportunities and value chains impacted

Phase 2.1

Horizon scanning

Activities

• Scan the internal and external environment for trends.

Info-Tech Insight

Systematically scan your environment to identify avenues or opportunities to skip one or several stages of technological development and stay ahead of disruption.

Identify a digitally enabled growth opportunity

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Scan the environment for external environment for megatrends, trends, and drivers. Prioritize trends and build a trends radar to keep track of trends within your environment.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

Growth opportunity

Horizon scanning

Understand how your industry is evolving.

Horizon scanning is a systematic analysis of detecting early signs of future changes or threats.

Horizon scanning involves scanning, analyzing, and communicating changes in an organization’s environment to prepare for potential threats and opportunities. Much of what we know about the future is based around the interactions and trajectory of macro trends, trends, and drivers. These form the foundations for future intelligence.

Macro Trends

A macro trend captures a large-scale transformative trend that could impact your addressable market.

Trends

A trend captures a business use case of the macro trend. Consider trends in relation to competitors in your industry.

Drivers

A driver is an underlying force causing the trend to occur. There can be multiple causal forces, or drivers, that influence a trend, and multiple trends can be influenced by the same causal force.

Identify signals of change in the present and their potential future impacts.

Identifying macro trends

A macro trend captures a large-scale transformative trend that could change the addressable market. Here are some examples of macro trends to consider when horizon scanning for your own organization:

Talent Availability

• Decentralized workforce
• Hybrid workforce
• Diverse workforce
• Skills gap
• Digital workforce
• Multigenerational workforce

Customer Expectations

• Personalization
• Digital experience
• Data ownership
• Transparency
• Accessibility

Technological Landscape

• AI & robotics
• Virtual world
• Ubiquitous connectivity,
• Genomics
• Materials (smart, nano, bio)

Regulatory System

• Market control
• Economic shifts
• Digital regulation
• Consumer protection
• Global green

Supply Chain Continuity

• Resource scarcity
• Sustainability
• Supply chain digitization
• Circular supply chains
• Agility

Identifying trends and drivers

A trend captures a business use case of a macro trend. Assessing trends can reduce some uncertainties about the future and highlight potential opportunities for your organization. A driver captures the internal or external forces that lead the trend to occur. Understanding and capturing drivers is important to understanding why these trends are occurring and the potential impacts to your value chains.

Leverage industry roundtables and trend reports to understand the art of the possible

Uncover important business and industry trends that can inform possibilities for technology innovation.

Explore trends in areas such as:

• Machine Learning
• Citizen Dev 2.0
• Venture Architecture
• Autonomous Organizations
• Self-Sovereign Cloud
• Digital Sustainability

Market research is critical in identifying factors external to your organization and identifying technology innovation that will provide a competitive edge. It’s important to evaluate the impact each trend or opportunity will have in your organization and market.

Visit Info-Tech’s Trends & Priorities Research Center

Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to identify your industry’s value streams

Images are from Info-Tech’s Rethinking Higher Education Report and 2021 Tech Trends Report

Example horizon scanning activity

Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to identify your industry’s value streams

Prioritize trends

Develop a cross-industry holistic view of trends.

Visualize emerging and prioritize action.

Moving from horizon scanning to action requires an evaluation process to determine which trends can lead to growth opportunities. First, we need to make a short list of trends to analyze. For your digital strategy, consider trends on the time horizon that are under 24 months. Next, we need to evaluate the shortlisted opportunities by a second set of criteria: relevance to your organization and impact on industry.

Timing

The estimated time to disruption this trend will have for your industry. Assess whether the trend will require significant developments to support its entry into the ecosystem.

Relevance

The relevance of the trend to your organization. Does the trend fulfil the vision or goals of the organization?

Impact

The degree of impact the trend will have on your industry. A trend with high impact will drive new business models, products, or services.

Prioritize trends to adopt into your organization

Prioritize trends based on timing, impact, and relevance.

2.1 Scanning the horizon

Objective: Generate trends

60 minutes

• Start by selecting macro trends that are occurring in your environment using the five categories. These are the large-scale transformative trends that impact your addressable market. Macro trends have three key characteristics:
  • They span over a long period of time.
  • They impact all geographic regions.
  • They impact governments, individuals, and organizations.
• Begin to break down these macro trends into trends. Trends should reflect the direction of a macro trend and capture the pattern in events. Consider trends that directly impact your organization.
• Understand the drivers behind these trends. Why are they occurring? What is driving them? Understanding the drivers helps us understand the value they may generate.
• Deprioritize trends that are expected to happen beyond 24 months.
• Prioritize trends that have a high impact and relevance to the organization.
• If you identify more than one trend, discuss with the group which trend you would like to pursue and limit it to one opportunity.

Input

• Macro Trends
• Trends

Output

• Trends Prioritization

Materials

• Digital Strategy Workbook

Participants

• Executive Team

Step 2.2

Leapfrogging ideation

Activities

• Identify leapfrog ideas.
• Identify impact to value chain.

Info-Tech Insight

A systematic approach to leapfrog ideation is one of the most critical ways in which an organization can build the capacity for resilient innovation.

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Evaluate trend opportunities and determine the strategic opportunities they pose. You will also work towards identifying the impact the trend has on your value chain.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• Strategic growth opportunities
• Value chain impact

Leapfrog into the future

Turn trends into growth opportunities.

To thrive in the digital age, organizations must innovate big, leverage internal creativity, and prepare for flexibility.

In this digital era, organizations are often playing catch up to a rapidly evolving technological landscape and following a strict linear approach to innovation. However, this linear catch-up approach does not help companies get ahead of competitors. Instead, organizations must identify avenues to skip one or several stages of technological development to leapfrog ahead of their competitors.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. – Alan Kay

Leapfrogging takes place when an organization introduces disruptive innovation into the market and sidesteps competitors who are unable to mobilize to respond to the opportunities.

Case Study

Classroom of the Future

Higher Education: Barco’s Virtual Classroom at UCL

University College London (UCL), in the United Kingdom, selected Barco weConnect virtual classroom technology for its continuing professional development medical education offering. UCL uses the platform for synchronous teaching, where remote students can interact with a lecturer.

One of the main advantages of the system is that it enables direct interaction with students through polls, questions, and whiteboarding. The system also allows you to track student engagement in real time.

The system has also been leveraged for scientific research and publications. In their “Delphi” process, key opinion leaders were able to collaborate in an effective way to reach consensus on a subject matter. The processes that normally takes months were successfully completed in 48 hours (McCann, 2020).

Results

The system has been largely successful and has supported remote, real-time teaching, two-way engagement, engagement with international staff, and an overall enriched teaching experience.

Funnel trends into leapfrog ideas

Go from trend insights into ideas.

Brainstorm ways of generating leapfrog ideas from trend insights.

Dealing with trends is one of the most important tasks for innovation. It provides the basis of developing the future orientation of the organization. However, being aware of a trend is one thing, to develop strategies for response is another.

To identify the impact the trend has on the organization, consider the four areas of growth strategies for the organization:

1. New Customers: Leverage the trend to target new customers for existing products or services.
2. New Business Models: Adjust the business model to capture a change in how the organization delivers value.
3. New Markets: Enter or create new markets by applying existing products or services to different problems.
4. New Product or Service Offerings: Introduce new products or services to the existing market.

From trend to leapfrog ideas

2.2 Identify and prioritize opportunities

60 minutes

1. Gather the prioritized trend identified in the horizon scanning exercise (the trend identified to be “adopted” within the organization).
2. Analyze each trend identified and assess whether the trend provides an opportunity for a new customers, new markets, new business models, or new products and services.

Input

• “Adopt” Trends

Output

• Trends to pursue
• Breakdown of strategic opportunities that the trends pose

Materials

• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• Executive Team

Step 2.3

Value chain impact

Activities

• Identify impact to value chain.

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Evaluate trend opportunities and determine the strategic opportunities they pose. Prioritize the opportunities and identify impact to your value chain.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• Strategic growth opportunities

Value chain analysis

Identify implications of strategic growth opportunities to the value chains.

As we identify and prioritize the opportunities available to us, we need to assess their impacts on value chains. Does the opportunity directly impact an existing value chain? Or does it open us to the creation of a new value chain?

The value chain perspective allows an organization to identify how to best minimize or enhance impacts and generate value.
As we move from opportunity to impact, it is important to break down opportunities into the relevant pieces so we can see a holistic picture of the sources of differentiation.

2.3 Value chain impact

Objective: Identify impacts to the value chain from the opportunities identified.
60 minutes

1. Once you have identified the opportunity, turn back to the value stream, and with the working group, identify the value stream impacted most by the opportunity. Leverage the human impact/business impact criteria to support the identification of the value stream to be impacted.
2. Within the value stream, brainstorm what parts of the value chain will be impacted by the new opportunity. Or ask whether this new opportunity provides you with a new value chain to be created.
3. If this opportunity will require a new value chain, identify what set of new processes or steps will be created to support this new entrant.
4. Identify any critical value chains that will be impacted by the new opportunity. What areas of the value chain pose the greatest risk? And where can we estimate the financial revenue will be impacted the most?

Input

• Opportunity

Output

• Value chains impacted

Materials

• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• Executive Team

Phase 3

Transform stakeholder journeys

• Identify stakeholder personas and scenarios
• Conduct journey map
• Identify projects

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Take the prioritized value chains and create a journey map to capture the end-to-end experience of a stakeholder.

Through a journey mapping exercise, you will identify opportunities to digitize parts of the journey. These opportunities will be broken down into functional initiatives to tackle in your strategy.

This phase involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes

1. Stakeholder persona
2. Stakeholder scenario
3. Stakeholder journey map
4. Opportunities

Step 3.1

Identify stakeholder persona and journey scenario

Activities

• Identify stakeholder persona.
• Identify stakeholder journey scenario.

Transform stakeholder journeys

This step will walk you through the following activities:

In this step, you with identify stakeholder personas and scenarios relating to the prioritized value chains.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• A taxonomy of critical stakeholder journeys.

Identify stakeholder persona and journey scenario

From value chain to journey scenario.

Stakeholder personas and scenarios help us build empathy towards our customers. It helps put us into the shoes of a stakeholder and relate to their experience to solve problems or understand how they experience the steps or processes required to accomplish a goal. A user persona is a valuable basis for stakeholder journey mapping.

A stakeholder scenario describes the situation the journey map addresses. Scenarios can be real (for existing products and services) or anticipated.

A stakeholder persona is a fictitious profile to represent a customer or a user segment. Creating this persona helps us understand who your customers really are and why they are using your service or product.

Learn more about applying design thinking methodologies

Identify stakeholder scenarios to map

For your digital strategy, leverage the existing and opportunity value chains identified in phase 1 and 2 for journey mapping.

Identify two existing value chains to be transformed. In section 1, we identified existing value chains to be transformed. For example, your stakeholder persona is a member of the faculty (engineering), and the scenario is the curricula design process.

Identify one new value chain. In section 2, we identified a new value chain. However, for a new opportunity, the scenario is more complex as it may capture many different areas of a value chain. Subsequently, a journey map for a new opportunity may require mapping all parts of the value chain.

Identify stakeholder persona

Who are you transforming for?

To define a stakeholder scenario, we need to understand who we are mapping for. In each value chain, we identified a stakeholder who gains value from that value chain. We now need to develop a stakeholder persona: a representation of the end user to gain a strong understanding of who they are, what they need, and their pains and gains.

One of the best ways to flesh out your stakeholder persona is to engage with the stakeholders directly or to gather the input of those who may engage with them within the organization.

For example, if we want to define a journey map for a student, we might want to gather the input of students or teaching faculty that have firsthand encounters with different student types and are able to define a common student type.

Info-Tech Insight

Run a survey to understand your end users and develop a stronger picture of who they are and what they are seeking to gain from your organization.

Example Stakeholder Persona

Name: Anne
Age: 35
Occupation: Engineering Faculty
Location: Toronto, Canada

Pains

What are their frustrations, fears, and anxieties?

• Time restraints
• Using new digital tools
• Managing a class while incorporating individual learning
• Varying levels within the same class
• Unmotivated students

What do they need to do?

What do they want to get done? How will they know they are successful?

• Design curricula in a hybrid mode without loss of quality of experience of in-classroom learning.

Gains

What are their wants, needs, hopes, and dreams?

• Interactive content for students
• Curriculum alignment
• Ability to run a classroom lab (in hybrid format)
• Self-paced and self-directed learning opportunities for students

(Adapted from Osterwalder, et al., 2014)

Define a journey statement for mapping

Now that we understand who we are mapping for, we need to define a journey statement to capture the stakeholder journey.
Leverage the following format to define the journey statement.
As a [stakeholder], I need to [prioritized value chain task], so that I can [desired result or overall goal].

3.1 Identify stakeholder persona and journey scenario

Objective: Identify stakeholder persona and journey scenario statement for journey mapping exercise.

1. Start by identifying who your stakeholder is. Give your stakeholder a demographic profile – capture a typical stakeholder for this value chain.
2. Identify what the gains and pains are during this value chain and what the stakeholder is seeking to accomplish.
3. Looking at the value chain, create a statement that captures the goals and needs of the stakeholder. Use the following format to create a statement:
   As a [stakeholder], I need to [prioritized value chain task], so that I can [desired result or overall goal].

Input

• Prioritized Value Chains (existing and opportunity)

Output

• Stakeholder Persona
• Stakeholder Journey Statement

Materials

• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)
• Stakeholder Persona Canvas

Participants

• Executive Team
• Stakeholders (if possible)
• Individual who works directly with stakeholders

Step 3.2

Map stakeholder journeys

Activities

• Map stakeholder journeys.

Transform stakeholder journeys

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Prioritize the journeys by focusing on what matters most to the stakeholders and estimating the organizational effort to improve those experiences.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• Candidate journeys identified for redesign or build.

Leverage customer journey mapping to capture value chains to be transformed

Conduct a journey mapping exercise to identify opportunities for innovation or automation.

A journey-based approach helps an organization understand how a stakeholder moves through a process and interacts with the organization in the form of touch points, channels, and supporting characters. By identifying pain points in the journey and the activity types, we can identify opportunities for innovation and automation along the journey.

Embrace design thinking methodologies to elevate the stakeholder journey and to build a competitive advantage for your organization.

Internal vs. external stakeholder perspective

In journey mapping, we always start with the stakeholder's perspective, then eventually transition into what the organization does business-wise to deliver value to each stakeholder. It is important to keep in mind both perspectives while conducting a journey mapping exercise as there are often different roles, processes, and technologies associated with each of the journey steps.

Stakeholder Journey
(External Perspective)

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Selecting
• Negotiating
• Approving

Business Processes
(Internal Perspective)

• Preparation
• Prospecting
• Presentation
• Closing
• Follow-Up

Info-Tech Insight

Take the perspective of an end user, who interacts with your products and services, as it is different from the view of those inside the organization, who implement and provide those services.

Build a stakeholder journey map

A stakeholder journey map is a tool used to illustrate the user’s perceptions, emotions, and needs as they move through a process and interact with the organization in the form of touch points, channels, and supporting characters.

Stakeholder Journey Map: Journey Activity

The journey activity refers to the steps taken to accomplish a goal.

The journey activity comprises the steps or sequence of tasks the stakeholder takes to accomplish their goal. These steps reflect the high-level process your candidates perform to complete a task or solve a problem.

Stakeholder Journey Map: Touch Points

Touch points are the points of interaction between a stakeholder and the organization.

A touch point refers to any time a stakeholder interacts with your organization or brand. Consider three main points of interaction with the customer in the journey:

• Before: How did they find out about you? How did they first contact you to start this journey? What channels or mediums were used?
  • Social media
  • Rating & reviews
  • Word of mouth
  • Advertising
• During: How was the sale or service accomplished?
  • Website
  • Catalog
  • Promotions
  • Point of sale
  • Phone system
• After: What happened after the sale or service?
  • Billing
  • Transactional emails
  • Marketing emails
  • Follow-ups
  • Thank-you emails

Stakeholder Journey Map: Nature of Activity

The nature of activity refers to the type of task the journey activity captures.

We categorize the activity type to identify opportunities for automation. There are four main types of task types, which in combination (as seen in the table below) capture a task or job to be automated.

Info-Tech Insight

Where automation makes sense, routine manual activities should be transformed first, followed by routine cognitive activities. Non-routine cognitive activities are the final frontier.

Stakeholder Journey Map: Metrics

Metrics are a quantifiable measurement of a process, activity, or initiative.

Metrics are crucial to justify expenses and to estimate growth for capacity planning and resourcing. There are multiple benefits to identifying and implementing metrics in a journey map:

• Metrics provide accurate indicators for accurate IT and business decisions.
• Metrics help you identify stakeholder touch point efficiencies and problems and solve issues before they become more serious.
• Active metrics tracking makes root cause analysis of issues much easier.

Example of journey mapping metrics: Cost, effort, turnaround time, throughput, net promoter score (NPS), satisfaction score

Stakeholder Journey Map: Key Moments & Pain Points

Key moments and pain points refer to the emotional status of a stakeholder at each stake of the customer journey.

The key moments are defining pieces or periods in a stakeholder's experience that create a critical turning point or memory.

The pain points are the critical problems that the stakeholder is facing during the journey or business continuity risks. Prioritize identifying pain points around key moments.

Info-Tech Insight

To identify key moments, look for moments that can dramatically influence the quality of the journey or end the journey prematurely. To improve the experience, analyze the hidden needs and how they are or aren’t being met.

Stakeholder Journey Map: Opportunities

An opportunity is an investment into people, process, or technology for the purposes of building or improving a business capability and accomplishing a specific organizational objective.

An opportunity refers to the initiatives or projects that should address a stakeholder pain. Opportunities should also produce a demonstrable financial impact – whether direct (e.g. cost reduction) or indirect (e.g. risk mitigation) – and be evaluated based on how technically difficult it will be to implement.

Customer

Create new or different experiences for customers

Workforce

Generate new organizational skills or new ways of working

Operations

Improve responsiveness and resilience of operations

Innovation

Develop different products or services

Example of stakeholder journey output: Higher Education

Stakeholder: A faculty member
Journey: As an engineering faculty member, I want to design my curricula in a hybrid mode of delivery so that I can simulate in-classroom experiences

3.2 Stakeholder journey mapping

Objective: Conduct journey mapping exercise for existing value chains and for opportunities.

1. Gather the working group and, with the journey mapping workbook, begin to map out the journey scenario statements identified in the value chain analysis. In total, there should be three journey maps:
   • Two for the existing value chains. Map out the specific point in the value chain that is to be transformed.
   • One for the opportunity value chain. Map out all parts of the value chain to be impacted by the new opportunity.
2. Start with the journey activity and map out the steps involved to accomplish the goal of the stakeholder.
3. Identify the touch points involved in the value chain.
4. Categorize the nature of the activity in the journey activity.
5. Identify metrics for the journey. How can we measure the success of the journey?
6. Identify pain points and opportunities in parallel with one another.

Input

• Value Chain Analysis
• Stakeholder Personas
• Journey Mapping Scenario

Output

• Journey Map

Materials

• Digital Strategy Workbook, Stakeholder Journey tab

Participants

• Executives
• Individuals in the organization that have a direct interaction with the stakeholders

Info-Tech Insight

Aim to build out 90% of the stakeholder journey map with the working team; validate the last 10% with the stakeholder themselves.

Step 3.3

Prioritize opportunities

Activities

• Prioritize opportunities.

Transform stakeholder journeys

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Prioritize the opportunities that arose from the stakeholder journey mapping exercise.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

Prioritized opportunities

Prioritization of opportunities

Leverage design-thinking methods to prioritize opportunities.

As there may be many opportunities arising from the journey map, we need to prioritize ideas to identify which ones we can tackle first – or at all. Leverage IDEO’s design-thinking “three lenses of innovation” to support prioritization:

• Feasibility: Do you currently have the capabilities to deliver on this opportunity? Do we have the right partners, resources, or technology?
• Desirability: Is this a solution the stakeholder needs? Does it solve a known pain point?
• Viability: Does this initiative have an impact on the financial revenue of the organization? Is it a profitable solution that will support the business model? Will this opportunity require a complex cost structure?

3.3 Prioritization of opportunities

Objective: Prioritize opportunities for creating a roadmap.

1. Gather the opportunities identified in the journey mapping exercise
2. Assess the opportunities based on IDEO’s three lenses of innovation:
   • Feasibility: Do you currently have the capabilities to deliver on this opportunity? Do we have the right partners, resources, or technology?
   • Viability: Does this initiative have an impact on the financial revenue of the organization? Is it a profitable solution that will support the business model? Will this opportunity require a complex cost structure?
   • Desirability: Is this a solution the stakeholder needs? Does it solve a known pain point?
3. Opportunities that score high in all three areas are prioritized for the roadmap.

Input

• Opportunities From Journey Map

Output

• Prioritized Opportunities

Materials

• Digital Strategy Workbook

Participants

• Executives

Step 3.4

Define digital goals

Activities

Transform stakeholder journeys

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Define a digital goal as it relates to the prioritized opportunities and the stakeholder journey map.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

Digital goals

Define digital goals

What digital goals can be derived from the stakeholder journey?

With the prioritized set of opportunities for each stakeholder journey, take a step back and assess what the sum of these opportunities mean for the journey. What is the overall goal or objective of these opportunities? How do these opportunities change or facilitate the journey experience? From here, identify a single goal statement for each stakeholder journey.

3.4 Define digital goals

Objective: Identify digital goals derived from the journey statements.

1. With the prioritized set of opportunities for each stakeholder journey (the two existing journeys and one opportunity journey) take a step back and assess what the sum of these opportunities means for each journey.
   • What is the overall goal or objective of these opportunities?
   • How do these opportunities change or facilitate the journey experience?
2. From here, identify a single goal for each stakeholder journey.

Input

• Opportunities From Journey Map
• Stakeholder Persona

Output

• Digital Goals

Materials

• Prioritization Matrix

Participants

• Executives

Step 3.5

Breakdown opportunities into series of initiatives

Activities

• Identify initiatives from the opportunities.

Transform stakeholder journeys

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Identify people, process, and technology initiatives for the opportunities identified.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• People, process, and technology initiatives

Break down opportunities into a series of initiatives

Brainstorm initiatives for each high-priority opportunity using the framework below. Describe each initiative as a plan or action to take to solve the problem.

Opportunity → Initiatives:

People: What initiatives are required to manage people, data, and other organizational factors that are impacted by this opportunity?

Process: What processes must be created, changed, or removed based on the data?

Technology: What systems are required to support this opportunity?

Break down opportunities into a series of initiatives

Info-Tech Insight

Ruthlessly evaluate if a initiative should stand alone or if it can be rolled up with another. Fewer initiatives or opportunities increases focus and alignment, allowing for better communication.

3.5 Break down opportunities into initiatives

Objective: Break down opportunities into people, process, and technology initiatives.

1. Split into groups and identify initiatives required to deliver on each opportunity. Document each initiative on sticky notes.
2. Have each team answer the following questions to identify initiatives for the prioritized opportunities:
   • People: What initiatives are required to manage people, data, and other organizational factors that are impacted by this opportunity?
   • Process: What processes must be created, changed, or removed based on the data?
   • Technology: What systems are required to support this opportunity?
3. Document findings in the Digital Strategy Workbook.

Input

• Opportunities

Output

• Opportunity initiatives categorized by people, process and technology

Materials

• Digital Strategy Workbook

Participants

• Executive team

Phase 4

Build a digital transformation roadmap

• Detail initiatives
• Build a unified roadmap roadmap

This phase will walk you through the following activities:

Build a digital transformation roadmap that captures people, process, and technology initiatives.

This phase involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes

• Digital transformation roadmap

Step 4.1

Detail initiatives

Activities

• Detail initiatives.

Build a digital transformation roadmap

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Detail initiatives for each priority initiative on your horizon.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• A roadmap for your digital business strategy.

Create initiative profiles for each high-priority initiative on your strategy

Step 4.2

Build a roadmap

Activities

• Create a roadmap of initiatives.

Build a digital transformation roadmap

Info-Tech Insight

A roadmap that balances growth opportunities with business resilience will transform your organization for long-term success in the digital economy.

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Identify timing of initiatives and build a Gantt chart roadmap.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• A roadmap for your digital transformation and the journey canvases for each of the prioritized journeys.

Build a roadmap to visualize your key initiative plan

Visual representations of data are more compelling than text alone.

Develop a high-level document that travels with the initiative from inception through executive inquiry, project management, and finally execution.

A initiative needs to be discrete: able to be conceptualized and discussed as an independent item. Each initiative must have three characteristics:

• Specific outcome: Describe an explicit change in the people, processes, or technology of the enterprise.
• Target end date: When the described outcome will be in effect.
• Owner: Who on the IT team is responsible for executing on the initiative.

4.2 Build your roadmap (30 minutes)

1. For the Gantt chart:
   • Input the Roadmap Start Year date.
   • Change the months and year in the Gantt chart to reflect the same roadmap start year.
   • Populate the planned start and planned end date for the pre-populated list of high-priority initiatives in each category (people, process, and technology).

Input

• Initiatives
• Initiative start & end dates
• Initiative category

Output

• Digital strategy roadmap visual

Materials

• Digital Strategy Workbook

Participants

• Senior Executive

Learn more about project portfolio management strategy

Step 4.3

Create a refresh strategy

Activities

• Refresh your strategy.

Build a digital transformation roadmap

Info-Tech Insight

A digital strategy is a design process, it must be revisited to pressure test and account for changes in the external environment.

This step will walk you through the following activities:

Detail a refresh strategy.

This step involves the following participants:

A cross-functional cohort across levels in the organization.

Outcomes of this step

• Refresh strategy

Create a refresh strategy

It is important to dedicate time to your strategy throughout the year. Create a refresh plan to assess for the changing business context and its impact on the digital business strategy. Make sure the regular planning cycle is not the primary trigger for strategy review. Put a process in place to review the strategy and make your organization proactive. Start by examining the changes to the business context and how the effect would trickle downwards. It’s typical for organizations to build a refresh strategy around budget season and hold planning and touch points to accommodate budget approval time.
Example:

4.3 Create a refresh strategy (30 minutes)

1. Work with the digital strategy creation team to identify the time frequencies the organization should consider to refresh the digital business strategy. Time frequencies can also be events that trigger a review (i.e. changing business goals). Record the different time frequencies in the Refresh of the Digital Business Strategy slide of the section.
2. Discuss with the team the different audience members for each time frequency and the scope of the refresh. The scope represents what areas of the digital business strategy need to be re-examined and possibly changed.

Example:

Input

• Digital Business Strategy

Output

• Refresh Strategy

Materials

• Digital Business Strategy Presentation Template
• Collaboration/ Brainstorming Tool (whiteboard, flip chart, digital equivalent)

Participants

• Executive Leaders

Related Info-Tech Research

Design a Customer-Centric Digital Operating Model

Establish a new way of working to deliver value on your digital transformation initiatives.

Develop a Project Portfolio Management Strategy

Drive project throughput by throttling resource capacity.

Adopt Design Thinking in Your Organization

Innovation needs design thinking.

Digital Maturity Improvement Service

Prepare your organization for digital transformation – or risk falling behind.

Research Contributors and Experts

Kenneth McGee

Research Fellow
Info-Tech Research Group

Kenneth McGee is a Research Fellow within the CIO practice at Info-Tech Research Group and is focused on IT business and financial management issues, including IT Strategy, IT Budgets and Cost Management, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), and Digital Transformation. He also has extensive experience developing radical IT cost reduction and return-to-growth initiatives during and following financial recessions.

Ken works with CIOs and IT leaders to help establish twenty-first-century IT organizational charters, structures, and responsibilities. Activities include IT organizational design, IT budget creation, chargeback, IT strategy formulation, and determining the business value derived from IT solutions. Ken’s research has specialized in conducting interviews with CEOs of some of the world’s largest corporations. He has also interviewed a US Cabinet member and IT executives at the White

House. He has been a frequent keynote speaker at industry conventions, client sales kick-off meetings, and IT offsite planning sessions.

Jack Hakimian

Vice President
Info-Tech Research Group

Jack has more than 25 years of technology and management consulting experience. He has served multi-billion dollar organizations in multiple industries including Financial Services and Telecommunications. Jack also served a number of large public sector institutions.

Prior to joining the Info-Tech Research Group, he worked for leading consulting players such as Accenture, Deloitte, EY, and IBM.

Jack led digital business strategy engagements as well as corporate strategy and M&A advisory services for clients across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He is a seasoned technology consultant who has developed IT strategies and technology roadmaps, led large business transformations, established data governance programs, and managed the deployment of mission-critical CRM and ERP applications.

He is a frequent speaker and panelist at technology and innovation conferences and events and holds a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering as well as an MBA from the ESCP-EAP European School of Management.

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