The latest issue of IESE Insight magazine is designed to help managers understand the various dimensions of digital transformation, and learn which skills are needed to navigate the seas of change successfully.
Companies of all description need to start rethinking their business models to take account of the way that digital density disrupts and undermines our well-established, traditional abilities to generate and capture value. Based on conversations with participants of executive programs and reviews of a number of cases on digital transformation, IESE’s Evgeny Káganer, Javier Zamora and Sandra Sieber synthesize the qualities, practices and approaches of the digitally minded leader, suggesting at least five important dimensions that make up digitally minded leadership.
Andy Rowsell-Jones, of the Gartner CIO & Executive Leadership Team, reiterates that companies need to adopt new ways of thinking. Achieving a "digital edge," he explains, is not about introducing some apps or social media here and there. Rather, it’s about understanding how to combine your physical and digital resources in innovative ways that create new capabilities, value and revenue.
Paul M. Leonardi (Northwestern University), Diane E. Bailey (University of Texas at Austin) and Stephen R. Barley (Stanford’s School of Engineering) use the case of an automobile manufacturer to show how digitally mediated relationships can give rise to as many problems as solutions. Although virtualizing work adds complexity to organizational processes, they also show how a financial services firm managed to use a social networking site to facilitate the sharing of vital organizational knowledge.
Elsewhere in the magazine, Kirstie McAllum (Université de Montréal) examines conflict management systems to reduce, mitigate or resolve workplace conflicts, while boosting a sense of commitment.
IESE Prof. Jaume Ribera draws from health-care initiatives in Europe and the United States to outline the basic steps to follow to ensure a better quality of life for your own innovation efforts, whether in health care or any other sector.
Ribera also interviews Jane Fountain, Managing Director of Harmony World Watch Center, who has received awards for her marketing theory and management innovation. She shares her perspectives on global brand-building and how to succeed in China.
Rounding out this issue are two special features: a case study on Vodafone’s foray into the Ghana market, and a look at "gamification," a trend that is breaking new ground across many sectors and which holds the potential to stem the rising tide of consumer and employee disaffection arising from today’s hyperconnected lifestyles.
IESE Insight is a quarterly research-based magazine, published in separate English and Spanish editions. Its premium content is linked to articles from the IESE Insight knowledge portal, which contains research and teaching materials, opinion articles, business indices, audiovisual materials and an extensive database of more than 20,000 scholarly references.
Go to the IESE Insight Review website.