Digital @ Scale

7HOW? DECISIVE, HOLISTIC, AND RAPID IMPLEMENTATION

NOW THAT WE’VE covered the Why and the What of the transformation process, it’s time to look at the concrete implementation. In the next three chapters, Anand Swaminathan and Jürgen Meffert describe the How—the heart of the transformation into a digital company.

The learning is over; now it’s about action. We’ve learned why digitization is not an option but a necessity, and we’ve seen the possibilities, from the new ecosystems and digitized company functions to new technological and organizational foundations. Now it’s about putting it into action, and actually transforming the company. Just as in the What chapters, there are many questions: How do we set our priorities? Where do we start our transformation into a digital company? How should a digital company be managed? How do we make it agile, and how do we convince the doubters? Again, a three-step structure helps to sort these questions, find the right answers, and approach the transformation.

First, we need a plan that defines the stages of a transformation program often lasting years—our blueprint. This chapter explains where to start, what’s important, and which course needs to be set right from the outset.

Test, fail, learn, profit: the digital company operates very differently from its analog predecessors. The organization, its management functions, and its processes need to be set to digital. Chapter 8 explains how to actuate the digital operating system, successfully ...