Digital Transformation is nowadays on the agenda in the private and public sector. Companies are looking for ways to leverage digital in order to create value for their stakeholders.
What is Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation is defined as the changes taking place within an industry or organization whereby the whole set of activities, models, processes and marketing among other factors are being transformed by the adoption of digital technology with the aim of creating value to their customers, users and citizens while at the same time expecting to out their competitors.
Digital Transformation also means that the prevalent mode of silo working and silo thinking is being disrupted at the expense of a new digital culture which requires group thinking and agile execution.
It’s a People Business
Although the term digital used to refer to technology, is has today changed and it now embraces people. As Mary Kate Loftus states,
Digital used to be about coding and IT; now it’s becoming a people business
Internally, companies are equipping themselves with resources and talent who can create and promote a digital culture who has at heart a customer-centric approach.
Hence, many companies are using social technologies to build online communities in order to build relationships. This new way of interacting is leading companies to also (re)creating their business models.
For example, Adidas known as the leading shoe manufacturer entered the lifestyle market by acquiring the running app – Runtastic. This reinforces the adidas Group’s commitment to inspire and enable athletes of all levels to harness the power of sport in their lives. As it communicates,
The adidas brand was the first in the industry to comprehensively bring data analytics to the athlete. With decades of continuous investment in sports science, sensor technology, wearables and digital communication platforms, there is no other sports company that has done more to innovate sports and change the game through technology.
From fusing online and offline and deriving new business models, to engaging users and developing customer experience, digital Transformation is disruptive. Authors, observers and practitioners have dealt extensively with digital transformation in the past few years.
Read our quotes on digital transformation to build an idea and understanding about the discussion taking place in the modern era.
The biggest impedient to a company’s future success is its past success.
Dan Schulman
We went from being the Flintstones to the Jetsons in 9 months
David Giambruno
When digital transformation is done right, it’s like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, but when done wrong, all you have is a really fast caterpillar.
George Westerman
I have no doubt that the auto industry will change more in the next five to ten years than it has in the past 50
Mary Barra
At least 40% of all businesses will die in the next 10 years… if they don’t figure out how to change their entire company to accommodate new technologies
John Chambers
There’s still a disconnect between brands listening through technology and knowing what to do with the information they’re hearing.
Didier Bonnet
In the digital age of ‘overnight’ success stories such as Facebook, the hard slog is easily overlooked.
Sir James Dyson
Every industry and every organization will have to transform itself in the next few years. What is coming at us is bigger than the original internet and you need to understand it, get on board with it and figure out how to transform your business
Tim O’Reilly
Every successful organization has to make the transition from a world defined primarily by repetition to one primarily defined by change. This is the biggest transformation in the structure of how humans work together since the Agricultural Revolution.
Bill Drayton
We’ve moved from digital products and infrastructure to digital distribution and Web strategy to now into more holistic transformations that clearly are based on mobile, social media, digitization and the power of analytics and we think it’s really a new era requiring new strategies.
Saul Berman
The next 5 years will be more disruptive than the last 15. This is NOT business as usual. A lot of technology that came in three years ago doesn’t work anymore.
Jeremy Waite
We still believe there is tremendous opportunity ahead of us to ensure that we build the right digital franchise for our consumers to address…[and are] making the first minor steps towards our target of €4 billion in 2020.
Kaspar Rorsted
Of course we like to have fashionable products, but we are a sports company.
Kaspar Rorsted
Our buyer has really moved fast in digital over the last two years, that’s where they’re spending their time
Grimur Fjeldsted
True disruption changes an approach to make a product or service more accessible or more affordable.
Damien Tampling
In general, companies don’t do a great job bridging online with offline experiences, primarily based on how they’ve been historically structured on the client side and how they are being incentivized.
Ron Blevins
“When it comes to marrying online with offline efforts, technology is not
a driver, but it is critical in making it happen”
Alison Corcoran
“If you want to do a project like this and do dynamic advertising
– there has to be someone who coordinates with all these teams,
to make sure everyone is happy, and all the data is connecting”
Anya Cheng
The current generation of entrepreneurs is unlike any other. Empowered by digital technologies and unencumbered by legacy structures, they are unleashing fundamentally new business practices at a pace that was almost unthinkable just a couple of decades ago… inventing new business models and monetization strategies all along the way.
Ericsson Digital Disruption Report
By 2020, 30% of web browsing sessions will be done without a screen. Many teens already use voice search daily and new audio-centric technologies.
Gartner
The automotive and mobile industries have been drawn together by the unstoppable rise of the Connected Car. As with any partnership, there will inevitably be teething problems, but both sides are aware of the importance of making the relationship work as the demand for connectivity in cars grows.
“Telefonica: Connected Car Industry
Report”
“We don’t think of it as just a digital transformation. We’re
driving an end-to-end business transformation”
Simeon Preston
The biggest part of our digital transformation is changing the way we think
Monique Shivanandan
This isn’t about technology for technology’s sake
Renee McKaskle
Digital transformation is a new jobs creator at the bottom of the pyramid. Digital technologies have also enabled 200 million Indians to open bank accounts in the last year alone
Arvind Gupta
In today’s era of volatility, there is no other way but to re-invent. The only sustainable advantage you can have over others is agility, that’s it.Because nothing else is sustainable, everything else you create, somebody else will replicate.
Jeff Bezos
“There is no alternative to digital transformation. Visionary
companies will carve out new strategic options for themselves –
those that don’t adapt, will fail. The number of digital options open
to businesses is growing exponentially, and with no sign of letting up
while posing a huge threat to existing competitive positions and is
radically shifting companies’ chances of winning the game.”
Roland Berger
“The innovator’s task is to ensure that this innovation – the
disruptive technology that doesn’t make sense – is taken seriously within the company without putting at risk the needs of present customers who provide profit and growth.”
Clayton Christensen
The area you can really do damage to your business is if you try and protect the legacy model.
John Kern
Every part of the UK economy and our lives has been digitised – from how we shop and entertain ourselves to the way we travel to work and manage our health.
Ed Vaizey
We should no longer be talking about ‘digital marketing’ but marketing in a digital world.
Keith Weed
Disruptors don’t set out to beat you at your own game — they change the rules.
Kai Riemer
Companies have too many experts who block innovation. True innovation really comes from perpendicular thinking.
Peter Diamandis
Digital transformation requires changes to processes and thinking—changes that span your internal organizational silos. The clear delineation between technical skills and leadership skills is blurring fast.
George Westerman
The only comparable time to this is the industrial revolution.
Jonathan Simmons
Digital media policy should be about what you can do rather than what you can’t.
Roly keating
This is not just a question of changing skillset. It is a changing of mindset.
Julie Dodd