1) Digitalization should increase business value – New technologies are developed exponentially, leading to increasing digitalization opportunities for comapnies1 –nevertheless, the fact that an investment should generate business value does not change. On the contrary it becomes increasingly important to prioritize among all possibilities and focus digital investments where most business value can be attained
1Forrester international – Beyond Moore’s Law: How Exponential Technology Will Drive Disruption Sept 28 -2018
2) Digitalization strengthens the core business – Digitalization is not just about disruptive business model innovation. Digitalization is largely part of reinforcing classic business development with a clear ROI, e.g. improved customer journey, optimized pricing and streamlined ways of working. Many companies have limited capital which largely should be used to strengthen, innovate and build the core business
3) Digitalization should be future-proofed – shifts in technology occur constantly and technical solutions and platforms tend to vary in terms of popularity and performance. Businesses need to find win-win and independence in procurements, as well as manage their technical partnerships and ecosystems to avoid lock-in effects and either missing future business opportunities or being forced into expensive and comprehensive technology changes
4) Digitalization happens through people – Businesses should understand and work with the prerequisites of the organizations and coworkers to maximize value of the digitalization, rather than getting caught up in advanced technology or cool functionalities. A study performed on several CEOs has shown that a 15 times more impactful and successful digitalization can be achieved by focusing on operational control systems such as knowledge, incentives and cooperation rather than using the most advanced technology2
5) Start at the right end – To digitalize or automize an poorly working process or customer experience is rarely the best choice and is not an optimal investment in business value. Time and money can be saved by taking a step back and asking the question “Which problem are we trying to solve and what do we want to achieve with the change?”
2 Gartner, CEO Survey Q4 2017
