Leading Digital

Research Scientist at MIT and author (Westerman), Sr VP at Capgemini Consulting (Bonnet), Co-Director of MIT's Initiative on the Digital Economy and author (McAfee): 1) define digital mastery as a combination of digital and leadership capability; 2) discuss how to build digital (part I) and leadership (part II) capabilities, and 3) outline a leader's playbook for digital transformation (part III). Each chapter ends with a checklist of key concepts. Personal takeaways: A straight-forward framework for companies and board directors to build digital and leadership capabilities, and lead digital transformation. Strongly recommend purchasing this guide. Key takeaways, by chapter: 1) Defining digital master and where in the 'grid' of digital and leadership capability the organization falls, and key strategies to transform: customer experience, exploiting core operations and reinventing business models Part I: Building Digital 2) Create compelling customer experience - digital tools, evolving culture, customer data at the center 3) Exploit core ops - use 6 levers: standardize vs. empower, control vs. innovate, orchestrate vs. unleash 4) Reinvent business models - monitor symptoms (Porter forces), consider reinvention / transformation, replace product/service, create digital business, reconfigure delivery, rethink value proposition, experiment & iterate Part II: Build Leadership 5) Craft digital vision - set goal, frame vision 6) Engage organization at scale - co-create, share ideas, reverse mentor, crowdsource 7) Govern the transformation - board, leadership, digital unit and culture, IT innovation, committees and liaisons 8) Building IT leadership - design where going, determine if need new people and systems, learning culture Part III: Leader's Playbook for Digital Transformation 9) Framing the digital challenge - build awareness, create vision (p. 188 table) 10) Focus investment - translate vision to action, fund transformation, build governance model 11) Mobilize organization - signal ambitions, earn the right to engage, set new behaviors and evolve culture 12) Sustain digital transformation - build foundational skills, align reward structures, measure-monitor-iterate with KPIs, scorecards, reviews

I’m an employee of a company in transition, and I thoroughly enjoyed this read to help me train my thought patterns around digital transformation. It is a bit aged but the principles still ring true. I would love to see a post-pandemic update

Very practical and engaging book that lays out key elements of managing digital transformations in business, grounded in extensive empirical research of close to 400 firms. The building blocks of vision, engagement, governance and technology leadership hang together well in working through the book. The authors also run an on-line MIT learning course focus on the Internet of Things, which applies this framework. For those wishing an applied/structured approach in applying the book, this is recommended. This also introduced some updated case studies over the 2014 edition. My own focus is supporting public sector digital transformations in developing countries. While the book does not directly speak to these, the focus on the book on larger corporations is helpful, especially give the challenges of silos and inertia seem amplified there!

This is an excellent guidebook for business leaders who want to embrace the possibilities of emerging digital technologies and need help getting started, making sure things remain on track for success, and want to sustain the momentum they have created. Both organizational leadership ability and mastery of IT are essential ingredients. Neither alone is sufficient on its own to become a "digital master". A transformative vision of one's business using the potential for new waves of IT and consensus amongst the team at the top (including the person appointed to lead the technology dimension) are the starting point according to the authors. The authors tackle the potential of new digital technologies to transform the customer experience, operations, and enable new lines of business (aka business models in their terminology ). A good read and useful guide for both technical leaders and the business executives they need to partner with. Highly recommended.

Practical and professional

Muy práctico y de lectura muy amena. Todo el que y el como de la transformación digital. Lo recomiendo para los interesados

Good content

This book has significantly aided my understanding of why digital transformation matters and offers great examples of leading organisations that currently benefit from their own transformation. More importantly, the authors have predicted that this will only rapidly increase and is likely to create a lot of exciting opportunities in the future. As a professional working in business advisory, this book has clearly articulated why the pace of digital transformation will continue to increase and the potential dire consequences for those businesses that don't embrace it and be part of the journey. The book is very well structured, easy to read and will be reference companion for the coming months and years ahead to support any form of decision making or business cases for investment.

A great book on leading digital teams for success. HBR is always the best in this.

This book is sufficiently broad and -- at the same time -- deep that it provides a framework to develop a management consulting service that could lead the masses of tier two companies through the digital transformation from their present states to the futures the management of those companies envision for themselves. Based on my own 40 years of working in the IT field, I can say with confidence the author had touched on all the important issues. I see no omissions. This is high praise from a critical consultant. Even more valuable than the book itself are the references in the book to other materials that explore each issue further. The author never indulges in speculation. He can -- and does -- point to well respected publications that support his claims and provide more detail to the interested reader. It is very clear that this book is a blend of the author's first hand experience in the field (although he never mentions it) and his in-depth, scholarly research. This book will serve as the cornerstone of a consulting practice I am defining at this very moment. My only objection is that the author often pitches his points at such a high level of conceptual abstraction that I felt I had to skip over many of his points if I were to hope to finish the book. In spite of its obvious merit, I would have been happier if the author had presented his points in language that was far more digestible.