CHAPTER 4Supply‐Side Catalysts: Digital Technologies Alone Do Not Do the Trick
Remember, we assume that digital transformation catalysts, “like their chemical counterparts, … can amplify and accelerate [digital transformation] reactions without being consumed by them” (Briggs 2019, p. 121).
We structure them in two clusters with three elements each: a supply‐side, which will be explained in detail in this chapter, and a demand‐side plus overarching elements, which will be explained in the next chapter.
On the supply‐side we find the following catalysts:
- Technology capabilities
- Workforce skills
- Abundance of funding
Digital Technology Does Not Scale Without New Skills and Funding
Our supply‐side catalysts cover all technology‐driven transformations and have one thing in common: The relation to or dependency on technology capabilities. But it is not all about technology and spending money on digital is not enough to generate value (Salviotti 2022).
We will also need to discuss other catalysts with often less emphasis but no less relevance. On the supply side, they include workforce skills plus funding mechanisms.
The good news is that no matter how unique and disruptive you think digital transformation may be, there are still commonalities among most extensively researched technology/IT/IS transformations and digital transformation. We can and should benefit from this. Still, the corresponding technology/IT/IS value concepts often do not refer to specific technologies.
They ...