What is digital transformation? Core tensions facing established companies on the global stage

Abstract

Research summary Digital transformation is a dominant theme in the global economy, but what it means for established companies remains perplexing for both academics and practitioners. As digital erases familiar geographic, industrial, and organizational boundaries, it has led to simplistic characterizations such as “digital changes everything.” Yet while digital changes some things, others remain the same. Here, we identify three core tensions at the heart of digital transformation—products vs platforms, firms vs ecosystems, and people vs tools—and describe their underlying economics, driving forces, and countervailing forces. These tensions frame a concrete discussion of strategic alternatives for global companies. Overall, we emphasize that digital transformation is not an objective state, but rather a strategic choice by executives from an array of alternatives. Managerial summary Digital transformation is a dominant theme in the global economy, but what it means remains perplexing for executives and academics. Pundits claim that “digital changes everything” and that leaders must “disrupt or be disrupted,” but is this really true for established companies serving robust customer needs on the global stage? Understanding what digital transformation means can be challenging as it breaks down familiar geographic, industrial, and organizational boundaries, creating new opportunities and threats. In this paper, we explore three key tensions at the heart of digital transformation—products vs platforms, firms vs ecosystems, and people vs tools—and enumerate their enabling and constraining forces. Building on these concrete constructs provides effective foundations for formulating digital transformation strategy.

A Agilidade Organizacional e a Difusão de Inovação Tecnológica das Empresas Cleantech

“…Digital Transformation can digitize the operations of Cleantech organizations, making the use of current technologies, such as Big Data, 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Internet of Things, make a participation with the management and operationalization of services in order to effect Organizational Agility as agility facilitators (Furr, Ozcan & Eisenhardt, 2022;Shakeel, 2021;Zitkiene & Dek snys, 2018;Wang et al, 2019). In addition, Smart Regulation characterizes the market and regulatory scenario as the ideal background to start a new cycle of energy purchase and sale, stimulating the Diffusion of Technological Innovation.…”

“…Category (I) Digital Transformation (N=12) according to the interviewees' reports, is part of a new panorama through the digitization of the energy sectors in their areas: generation, transmission, distribution and commercialization, and sanitation (e.g., mitigation of losses and waste in water transport). In addition, Digital Transformation, according to the respondents, guarantees transparency to all those involved in operations (Furr, Ozcan and Eisenhardt, 2022).…”

The future of global strategy

“…Florida and Adler (2022) discuss how locational strategy offers a perspective for understanding how location decisions fit into broader corporate strategy. Furr, Ozcan, and Eisenhardt (2022) elucidate three key tensions in digital transformation: Products vs. platforms, firms versus ecosystems, and people versus tools. Ganson, He, and Henisz (2022) discuss how multinationals may contribute to social divisions as well as help to address them.…”

Digital Transformation (DT): An Overview of International Scientific Production in the Last Decade

“…It can increase firms' ability to collect, disseminate, store, analyze, and display information, strengthening firms' ability to process such information (Roberts and Grover, 2012). An organization's market agility depends heavily on its ability to access information and then act on it due to the problems of information overload in today's significant data era (Srinivasan & Swink, 2018;Furr, Ozcan, & Eisenhardt, 2022).…”