Digital Transformation Review: 9th Edition

“How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.” These lines from Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises resonate in an economic environment where organizations face digital disruption from agile young startups to established tech giants. Companies compete in a world where Facebook has a bigger population than China, Apple has more cash on hand than the US Treasury, and Amazon is making rapid inroads into the consumer goods sector, already boasting over 3,000 private-label products. The average life span of companies in the S&P 500 has declined from 61 years in 1958 to about 20 years now.

Change is everywhere today. Industry boundaries are being redefined, access to assets is becoming more important than ownership, and linear value chains are becoming connected ecosystems.

This new environment requires a strategic rethink. In this edition of the Digital Transformation Review, we examine the approaches that organizations can take to crafting a strategy for a digital age, focusing on the following key questions:

1. How do you design a digital strategy in today’s uncertain and volatile world and understand how much reinvention of the organization is required?
2. Should your company become a platform, or be a part of one?
3. What are the most successful approaches to executing digital strategy – acquisitions, partnerships, Greenfield?

In addition to Capgemini Consulting’s analysis, we spoke to a wide range of experts on these topics, from CXOs to academics and analysts, who offered views from across the world, from the US to the Middle East. The accelerating pace of technology change is also examined through the ‘startup corner’, where the next-generation of digital disruptors are profiled.