Building a Digital Future

CHAPTER 4Five Cornerstones of Digital Transformation

At any moment, the decision you make can change the course of your life forever.

—Anthony Robbins

In this chapter, we will explore the various shifts that we consider necessary before the transformation journey is fully synced within the organization. Understanding your organization is an integral part of the journey that precedes laying out your transformation roadmap. Gareth Morgan has metaphorically referred to organization in his pathbreaking book Images of Organisation¹ through different lenses—organization as machines, organization as organisms, organizations as brains, organization as cultures, organization as political systems, organizations as psychic prisons, organizations as flux and transformation, and organizations as instruments of domination. We will take you through five cornerstones of the transformation program that are linked to understanding your organization.

Strategic Shift

Is your digital transformation part of your strategic plan or is it instead of it? Any business needs to know where it is going and why, and what will be the benefit. This could be using the concepts of organic or acquisitional growth, vertical or horizontal integration, or a more modern approach of innovate and test. Whatever your plan, for most companies a digital transformation is likely to be needed at some point if you are to survive.

However, there has to be a “why?” and if you are to be competitive it must not just be ...