New white paper – Digital transformation: new ways of working

We’re delighted to announce the launch of our new white paper that sets out how to rewire your culture and skills to survive and thrive in a digital world.

Forrester predicts that by 2020, businesses using Artificial Intelligence (AI) will steal $1.2 trillion per year from their less digitally advanced competitors.  In a large study by SAP supported by Oxford Economics of 3,000 executives in 17 global regions across a variety of industries, the 100 companies that had undergone the greatest digital transformation reported increased profitability and market share (see figure 1).

So ‘digital’ is not something that we can ignore.

What is digital?

At Global Integration we summarize ‘digital’ as using technology to:

1. Reimagine and redesign the customer experience from start to finish (this could include totally new customers, services and markets)
2. Transform internal processes, culture and ways of working
3. Combine the two to re-envision business models

Most organizations beginning their digital journey are putting the majority of their effort and attention into point 1 – improving the customer experience. For example, Nike gave itself the goal of becoming a ‘fitness and lifestyle’ brand rather than just a sportswear maker and has successfully done so by increasing customer engagement through introducing mobile fitness apps and building social media communities.

However, key to sustained digital success is also point 2 – without a corresponding change in ways of working and culture, we will never be able to fulfil our dream of a new exceptional digital customer journey.  This is the focus of our white paper.  The good news is that whilst new digital ways of working may seem less sexy than new digital marketing initiatives, they are harder for competitors to understand and copy.

To support you in this mission we have reviewed the latest thinking from over 50 consulting reports, management studies and the few academic papers that have been published yet on this topic.  We’ve combined these with our 20+ years’ experience helping the world’s top international organizations introduce new ways of working for virtual, matrix and other forms of increasingly connected organizations. As we show in our white paper, ‘digital’ is the next natural step in this journey.

In the spirit of constant experimentation (more on this later), we present this white paper as our ‘minimal viable product’ – the first round of many iterations to come.  In a constantly changing digital environment, this is our best effort at sharing what our research has identified as the most important mindsets, skills and culture to succeed in a digital world.  But we would love to hear your thoughts and experiences, and refine our thinking with you. As always our contribution is intended to be practical – we are not evangelists for a particular technology or starry eyed optimists.

So to find out more about how to rewire your culture and skills to thrive in a digital world, download our new digital white paper here.