Open Strategy For Digital Business

How smart companies are opening up strategic initiatives to involve front-line employees, experts, suppliers, customers, entrepreneurs, and even competitors. Why are some of the world’s most successful companies able to stay ahead of disruption, adopting and implementing innovative strategies, while others struggle? It’s not because they hire a new CEO or expensive consultants but rather because these pioneering companies have adopted a new way of strategizing. Instead of keeping strategic deliberations within the C-Suite, they open up strategic initiatives to a diverse group of stakeholders—front-line employees, experts, suppliers, customers, entrepreneurs, and even competitors. Open Strategy presents a new philosophy, key tools, step-by-step advice, and fascinating case studies—from companies that range from Barclays to Adidas—to guide business leaders in this groundbreaking approach to strategy. The authors—business-strategy experts from both academia and management consulting—introduce tools for each of the three stages of strategy-making: idea generation, plan formulation, and implementation. These are digital tools (including strategy contests), which allow the widest participation; hybrid digital/in-person tools (including a “nightmare competitor challenge”); a workshop tool that gamifies the business model development process; and tools that help companies implement and sustain open strategy efforts. Open strategy has an astonishing track record: a survey of 200 business leaders shows that although open-strategy techniques were deployed for only 30 percent of their initiatives, those same initiatives generated 50 percent of their revenues and profits. This book offers a roadmap for this kind of success.

This book offers the reader a novel perspective on how digital contexts and open strategy approaches – the act of opening up strategic initiatives beyond company managers to involve front-line employees, stakeholders, and entrepreneurs – are related. Going beyond the claim that digital media drives open strategy by containing a detailed analyses of the interrelations between the two, the authors examine how ICT have diffused globally and trace the emerging links between digitally driven environments and open strategizing approaches. This book also draws a general picture of how and why digital technologies create new networks. A more competitive, transparent, empowered, and inclusive environment would enhance development and encourage novel approaches to strategies implemented. Real-life exemplifications of how and why digital technologies contribute to open strategizing are also provided. Various drivers impacting the necessity to develop more relational advantage are discussed and intertwined with the description of challenges observed in the case of imposing openness. A useful resource for researchers of strategic management and information systems, as well as those looking at digital strategy and transformation.

Digital transformation is no longer news--it's a necessity. Despite the widespread threat of disruption, many large companies in traditional industries have succeeded at digitizing their businesses in truly transformative ways. The New York Times, formerly a bastion of traditional media, has created a thriving digital product behind a carefully designed paywall. Best Buy has transformed its business in the face of Amazon's threat. John Deere has formed a data-analysis arm to complement its farm-equipment business. And Goldman Sachs and many others are using digital technologies to reimagine their businesses. In Driving Digital Strategy, Harvard Business School professor Sunil Gupta provides an actionable framework for following their lead. For over a decade, Gupta has studied digital transformation at Fortune 500 companies. He knows what works and what doesn't. Merely dabbling in digital or launching a small independent unit, which many companies do, will not bring success. Instead you need to fundamentally change the core of your business and ensure that your digital strategy touches all aspects of your organization: your business model, value chain, customer relationships, and company culture. Gupta covers each aspect in vivid detail while providing navigation tips and best practices along the way. Filled with rich and illuminating case studies of companies at the forefront of digital transformation, Driving Digital Strategy is the comprehensive guide you need to take full advantage of the limitless opportunities the digital age provides.

“A clear and crisply written account of machine intelligence, big data and the sharing economy. But McAfee and Brynjolfsson also wisely acknowledge the limitations of their futurology and avoid over-simplification.” —Financial Times In The Second Machine Age, Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson predicted some of the far-reaching effects of digital technologies on our lives and businesses. Now they’ve written a guide to help readers make the most of our collective future. Machine | Platform | Crowd outlines the opportunities and challenges inherent in the science fiction technologies that have come to life in recent years, like self-driving cars and 3D printers, online platforms for renting outfits and scheduling workouts, or crowd-sourced medical research and financial instruments.

Digital Business: Strategy, Management & Transformation covers all the essentials for understanding and doing business in a digital world within a single comprehensive textbook, including an introduction to the digital business environment, cutting-edge coverage of data and artificial intelligence, and an exploration of the latest digital tools and platforms and emerging and enabling technologies such as blockchain and Web 3.0. The text explores all types and scales of digital business, from small, innovative start-ups and disruptors that are ‘born digital’, to the digital transformation of traditional large-scale businesses. Readers will also learn how these businesses strategise, operate and manage themselves, user experiences and customer relationships within an ever-increasing digital environment. Consideration is also given to the ethical and legal components of doing digital business with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals in mind. This textbook includes a rich source of learning features and activities making it suitable for business students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, and setting students up for success on graduation in a fast-changing, digitalised and technology-led business world. Annmarie Hanlon teaches digital marketing and is Course Director for the MSc Marketing and Leadership at Cranfield School of Management in the UK. You can follow her updates at twitter.com/annmariehanlon and LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/annmariehanlon

Digital transformation is not about technology--it's about change. In the rapidly changing digital economy, you can't succeed by merely tweaking management practices that led to past success. And yet, while many leaders and managers recognize the threat from digital--and the potential opportunity--they lack a common language and compelling framework to help them assess it and guide them in responding. They don't know how to think about their digital business model. In this concise, practical book, MIT digital research leaders Peter Weill and Stephanie Woerner provide a powerful yet straightforward framework that has been field-tested globally with dozens of senior management teams. Based on years of study at the MIT Center for Information Systems Research (CISR), the authors find that digitization is moving companies' business models on two dimensions: from value chains to digital ecosystems, and from a fuzzy understanding of the needs of end customers to a sharper one. Looking at these dimensions in combination results in four distinct business models, each with different capabilities. The book then sets out six driving questions, in separate chapters, that help managers and executives clarify where they are currently in an increasingly digital business landscape and highlight what's needed to move toward a higher-value digital business model. Filled with straightforward self-assessments, motivating examples, and sharp financial analyses of where profits are made, this smart book will help you tackle the threats, leverage the opportunities, and create winning digital strategies.

This book provides practising executives and academics with the theories and best practices to plan and implement the digital transformation successfully. Key benefits: an overview on how leading companies plan and implement digital transformation interviews with chief executive officers and chief digital officers of leading companies – Bulgari, Deutsche Bahn, Henkel, Lanxess, L’Oréal, Unilever, Thales and others – explore lessons learnt and roadmaps to successful implementation research and case studies on the digitalization of small and medium-sized companies cutting-edge academic research on business models, organizational capabilities and performance implications of the digital transformation tools and insights into how to overcome internal resistance, build digital capabilities, align the organization, develop the ecosystem and create customer value to implement digital strategies that increase profits Managing Digital Transformation is unique in its approach, combining rigorous academic theory with practical insights and contributions from companies that are, according to leading academic thinkers, at the forefront of global best practice in the digital transformation. It is a recommended reading both for practitioners looking to implement digital strategies within their own organisations, as well as for academics and postgraduate students studying digital transformation, strategy and marketing.

Digital transformation is a must. Consumers have fully embraced the digital age, and companies have followed suit, deploying programs to adapt to the rapidly evolving marketplace. But the pace of technological change is such that digital trends are shaping the future, revolutionizing the business world and turning it on its head. How can business leaders operate, innovate and thrive in the present and future digital market? Digital Business Strategy - How to Design, Build and Future-Proof a Business in the Digital Age provides a practical step-by-step guide with frameworks, examples and real-world guidance to break down what is required to deliver complex business transformation. Six comprehensive sections delve into: understanding the drivers of the digital age, how to develop a digital strategy, the core competencies of a digital business, how to execute transformational change and build a digital culture, how to deliver value today while creating opportunities for tomorrow through ambidextrous roadmap planning and execution techniques, and preparing for the next wave of innovation. Digital Business Strategy is for C-Suite leaders, first-line management, entrepreneurs, SME business owners and students; anyone interested in shaping their team, business, service or proposition to be digitally sustainable and resilient in the present and future digital era.