CHAPTER 9

FRAMING THE DIGITAL CHALLENGE

As we showed in chapter 1, digital transformation has already hit every industry we’ve studied. Yet nearly 40 percent of the respondents we surveyed cite “lack of urgency” as a major obstacle to digital transformation.1 Why is this? One of the key reasons organizations miss out is management inertia—failure to sense the need to change. They react to threats instead of shaping the future.

In industries such as publishing, digital technologies have already created such an upheaval that the context for transformation is clear; it’s a burning platform. In other industries, such as manufacturing, the case for change is less obvious. One manager explained the reason for the skepticism: “There is too much hype. ...

Get Leading Digital now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.