November Paper by Mariam H. Ismail, Mohamed Khater, Mohamed Zaki on 'Digital Business Transformation and Strategy: What do we know so far?'
While many companies are experimenting with digital transformation, recent studies of success stories have shown that the enhanced competitive positioning of successful firms does not depend solely on the technologies they adopt, but, more importantly, builds on the strategies that their leaders deploy. Nonetheless, there is still a wide gap between executives’ intentions and the realization of successful digital transformation initiatives and the consequent need to demonstrate the embedded strategic considerations. To help managers through the formulation and implementation of their firms’ digital transformation strategies, this article 1) consolidates the current state of the literature regarding business-level digital transformation to understand its origins and roots; 2) synthesizes findings regarding the context, content and strategy process of digital business transformation; 3) adds novel insights regarding the positioning of digital transformation; and 4) reveals the key characteristics that distinguish it from previous technology-enabled transformations.