- Your organizational digital business strategy sits on the shelf because it fails to guide implementation.
- Your organization has difficulty adapting new technologies or rethinking their existing business models.
- Your organization lacks a clear vision for the digital customer journey.
- Your management team lacks a framework to rethink how your organization delivers value today, which causes annual planning to become an ideation session that lacks focus.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
- Pre-pandemic digital strategies have been primarily focused on automation. However, your post-pandemic digital strategy must focus on driving resilience for growth opportunities.
Impact and Result
- Design a strategy that applies innovation to your business model, streamline and transform processes, and make use of technologies to enhance interactions with customers and employees.
- Use digital for transforming non-routine cognitive activities and for derisking key elements of the value chain.
- Create a balanced roadmap that improves digital maturity and prepares you for long-term success in a digital economy.
Member Testimonials
After each Info-Tech experience, we ask our members to quantify the real-time savings, monetary impact, and project improvements our research helped them achieve. See our top member experiences for this blueprint and what our clients have to say.
9.0/10
Overall Impact
$89,685
Average $ Saved
27
Average Days Saved
Client
Experience
Impact
$ Saved
Days Saved
Arun Estates
Guided Implementation
8/10
$3,280
5
I think combining this with "Make the Case for Product Delivery" will give us powerful tools to guide product direction.
College of New Caledonia
Guided Implementation
8/10
$10,000
10
Sidney is a well of knowledge. A great facilitator. And, most practically a do'er
CAF - Corporacion Andina de Fomento
Workshop
10/10
$77,999
50
The scope of work and engagement were thorough and the results impactful. Kevin, Jing, David and Manoj did a great job!
PRIDE Industries
Workshop
10/10
$389K
55
Kevin did a great job leading the team through the workshop. As the CIO I have a good idea of what we need to be doing. What Kevin provided with th... Read More
Emily Carr University of Art + Design
Workshop
10/10
$70,000
32
The Digital strategy workshop transformed our view of the work and perspective important for a successful digital University. In a matter of four d... Read More
Saskatchewan Ministry of Health
Workshop
8/10
$400K
47
Denis' knowledge was very valuable and he is experienced to the nth degree. His participatioin is always at 100%. More frequent breaks were neede... Read More
City of Fredericton
Workshop
8/10
$400K
50
It was very intense (to nobobdy's fault) and there needed to be more frequent breaks. Denis' knowledge is amazing and he helped formulate what we w... Read More
Life Healthcare Group (Pty) Ltd
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
2
HOLLARD INSURANCE
Guided Implementation
9/10
N/A
N/A
Best: David has great knowledge about the industry as well as the subject. I like to sound board to him to validate my thinking. He guides in the d... Read More
Children's Hospital Colorado
Workshop
10/10
$519K
85
We have identified our top priorities and mapped over 4 years. This is really valuable to us. We now have wide-spread organizational buy in for o... Read More
St. Lawrence College
Guided Implementation
9/10
$17,500
14
The experience was great, the Infotech representatives were knowledgeable and accessible
University of Maribor
Guided Implementation
10/10
$71,000
20
Excellent conversations on future trends, very valuable as I don't have to time to explore the future trends on my own.
State of Michigan
Workshop
9/10
N/A
N/A
the best part of the experience was the engagement by my business owners.they followed your lead and the process. what is the worst part the engag... Read More
Plannera
Workshop
9/10
$75,000
20
The hands-on/in person workshop really rallied our team, and focused efforts towards a common goal of organizing and aligning our digital priorities.
Midland Credit Management, Inc
Workshop
9/10
$97,499
20
Best Parts: Denis ability to quickly grasp our business and consumer journey opportunities allowed for productive conversations. Really great facil... Read More
East Carolina University
Workshop
9/10
$32,499
20
Best part was the opportunity to pull a diverse group of teams together and map out our process, which was extremely valuable. No parts were bad....
Coca-Cola Sabco (Pty) Ltd
Workshop
10/10
$24,699
20
The overall workshop was a good experience, really well constructed with excellent facilitation. No worst parts.
Emily Carr University of Art + Design
Guided Implementation
10/10
$5,000
5
The analyst was well prepared and had the right experience in the space. I have already received a follow-up message. I would work with her again a... Read More
Capilano University
Guided Implementation
7/10
N/A
N/A
This was an intro call to describe the framework used by Info-Tech. It's very business & organization oriented which I like. Too early to have a re... Read More
University Of Regina
Workshop
10/10
N/A
10
It is unknown at this time what the resulting financial impact will be, as it directly relates to a larger project that is anticipated to result in... Read More
The Corporation of the City of Kingston
Workshop
8/10
$25,000
41
City Of Topeka
Workshop
8/10
$12,999
10
provided tools that will be very beneficial for more clearly define processes/challenges. Disappointing was the interaction from our organization.... Read More
Mexichem Servicios Administrativos S.A. de C.V.
Workshop
10/10
$64,999
20
Both Dana & Kevin have been great to work with... thank you for a great experience!
Spartan Controls Ltd.
Workshop
8/10
$25,000
10
University of Texas - Arlington
Workshop
10/10
$2,519
20
State Information Technology Agency SOC Limited
Guided Implementation
9/10
$10,000
10
No worst parts.. .the best parts were the simple explanation provided, and the available tools to assist with practical implementation.
IMI Critical Engineering
Workshop
10/10
$100K
100
The best part of the digital strategy workshop was going through customer journey mapping, it brought out a lot of pain points, and also great sugg... Read More
MCS Healthcare Holdings LLC
Workshop
9/10
$12,599
47
I love how Dana Daher and Jean Bujold guided us on pre-work, workshops and currently post-work activities of Digital Business Strategy Plan in a co... Read More
Insurance Corporation of British Columbia
Guided Implementation
8/10
N/A
2
Dana Daher added a great deal of value: knowledgeable, and a quick study. The check-in process with what seemed to be multiple account managers ... Read More
Taiga Building Products
Guided Implementation
8/10
$3,719
6
Workshop: Define Your Digital Business Strategy
Workshops offer an easy way to accelerate your project. If you are unable to do the project yourself, and a Guided Implementation isn't enough, we offer low-cost delivery of our project workshops. We take you through every phase of your project and ensure that you have a roadmap in place to complete your project successfully.
Module 1: Identify Two Existing Value Chains
The Purpose
- Understand how your organization creates value today.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Identify opportunities for digital transformation in how you currently deliver value today.
Activities
Outputs
Validate business context.
- Business context
Assess business ecosystem.
- Overview of business ecosystem
Identify and prioritize value streams.
- Value streams and value chains
Break down value stream into value chains.
Module 2: Identify a Digitally Enabled Growth Opportunity
The Purpose
- Leverage strategic foresight to evaluate how complex trends can evolve over time and identify opportunities to leapfrog competitors.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Identify a leapfrog idea to sidestep competitors.
Activities
Outputs
Conduct a horizon scan.
Identify leapfrog ideas.
- One leapfrog idea
Identify impact to existing or new value chains.
- Corresponding value chain
Module 3: Transform Stakeholder Journeys
The Purpose
- Design a journey map to empathize with your customers and identify opportunities to streamline or enhance existing and new experiences.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Identify a unified view of customer experience.
- Identify opportunities to automate non-routine cognitive tasks.
- Identify gaps in value delivery.
- Improve customer journey.
Activities
Outputs
Identify stakeholder persona.
- Stakeholder persona
Identify journey scenario.
- Stakeholder scenario
Conduct one journey mapping exercise.
- Journey map
Identify opportunities to improve stakeholder journey.
Break down opportunities into projects.
- Journey-based projects
Module 4: Build a Digital Transformation Roadmap
The Purpose
- Build a customer-centric digital transformation roadmap.
Key Benefits Achieved
- Keep your team on the same page with key projects, objectives, and timelines.
Activities
Outputs
Prioritize and categorize initiatives.
- Digital goals
Build roadmap.
- Unified roadmap
Define Your Digital Business Strategy
After a major crisis, find your place in the digital economy.
Info-Tech Research Group
Info-Tech is a provider of best-practice IT research advisory services that make every IT leader’s job easier.
35,000 members sharing best practices you can leverage
Millions spent developing tools and templates annually
Leverage direct access to over 100 analysts as an extension of your team
Use our massive database of benchmarks and vendor assessments
Get up to speed in a fraction of the time
Analyst Perspective
Build business resilience and prepare for a digital economy.
![This is a picture of Senior Research Analyst, Dana Daher](jpg/dana-daher.jpg)
Dana Daher
Senior Research Analyst
To survive one of the greatest economic downturns since the Great Depression, organizations had to accelerate their digital transformation by engaging with the Digital Economy. To sustain growth and thrive as the pandemic eases, organizations must focus their attention on building business resilience by transforming how they deliver value today.
This requires a value-driven approach to digital transformation that is capable of identifying what aspects of the business to transform, what technologies to embrace, what processes to automate, and what new business models to create. And most importantly, it needs to unify digital possibilities with your customer experiences.
If there was ever a time for an organization to become a digital business, it is today.
Executive Summary
Your Challenge
- Your organization has difficulty adapting new technologies or rethinking the existing business models.
- Your management lacks a framework to rethink how your organization delivers value today, which causes annual planning to become an ideation session that lacks focus.
- There is uncertainty on how to meet evolving customer needs and how to compete in a digital economy.
Common Obstacles
- Your organization might approach digital transformation as if we were still in 2019, not recognizing that the pandemic resulted in a major shift to an end-to-end digital economy.
- Your senior-most leadership thinks digital is "IT's problem" because digital is viewed synonymously with technology.
- On the other hand, your IT team lacks the authority to make decisions without the executives’ involvement in the discussion around digital.
Info-Tech’s Approach
- Design a strategy that applies innovation to your business model, streamline and transform processes, and make use of technologies to enhance interactions with customers and employees.
- Use digital for transforming non-routine cognitive activities and for de-risking key elements of the value chain.
- Create a balanced roadmap that improves digital maturity and prepares you for long-term success in a digital economy.
Info-Tech Insight
After a major crisis, focus on restarting the growth engine and bolstering business resilience.
Your digital business strategy aims to transform the business
Digital Business Strategy
- Looks for ways to transform the business by identifying what technologies to embrace, what processes to automate, and what new business models to create.
- Unifies digital possibilities with your customer experiences.
- Accountability lies with the executive leadership.
- Must involve cross-functional participation from senior management from the different areas of the organization.
IT Strategy
- Aims to identify how to change, fix, or improve technology in support of the organization’s business strategy.
- Accountability lies with the CIO.
- Must involve IT management and gather strategic input from the business.
Becoming a digital business
Automate tasks to free up time for innovation.
Business activities (tasks, procedures, and processes, etc.) are used to create, sell, buy, and deliver goods and services.
When we convert information into a readable format used by computers, we call this digitization (e.g. converting paper into digital format). When we convert these activities into a format to be processed by a computer, we have digitalization (e.g. scheduling appointments online).
These two processes alter how work takes place in an organization and form the foundation of the concept digital transformation.
We maintain that digital transformation is all about becoming a “digital business” – an organization that performs more than 66% of all work activities via executable code.
As organizations take a step closer to this optimal state, new avenues are open to identify advances to promote growth, enhance customer experiences, secure sustainability, drive operational efficiencies, and unearth potential future business ventures.
Key Concepts:
Digital: The representation of a physical item in a format used by computers
Digitization: Conversion of information and processes into a digital format
Digitalization: Conversion of information into a format to be processed by a computer
Why transform your business?
COVID-19 has irrefutably changed livelihoods, businesses, and the economy. During the pandemic, digital tools have acted as a lifeline, helping businesses and economies survive, and in the process, have acted as a catalyst for digital transformation.
As organizations continue to safeguard business continuity and financial recovery, in the long term, recovery won’t be enough.
Although many pandemic/recession recovery periods have occurred before, this next recovery period will present two first-time challenges no one has faced before. We must find ways to:
- Recover from the COVID-19 recession.
- Compete in a digital economy.
To grow and thrive in this post-pandemic world, organizations must provide meaningful and lasting changes to brace for a future defined by digital technologies.
– Dana Daher, Info-Tech Research Group
We are amid an economic transformation
What we are facing today is a paradigm shift transforming the ways in which we work, live, and relate to one another.
In the last 60 years alone, performance and productivity have been vastly improved by IT in virtually all economic activities and sectors. And today, digital technologies continue to advance IT's contribution even further by bringing unprecedented insights into economic activities that have largely been untouched by IT.
As technological innovation and the digitalization of products and services continue to support economic activities, a fundamental shift is occurring that is redefining how we live, work, shop, and relate to one another.
These rapid changes are captured in a new 21st century term:
The Digital Economy.
90% of CEOs believe the digital economy will impact their industry. But only 25% have a plan in place.
– Paul Taylor, Forbes, 2020
Analyst Perspective
Become a Digital Business
Kenneth McGee
Research Fellow
Today, the world faces two profoundly complex, mega-challenges simultaneously:
- Ending the COVID-19 pandemic and recession.
- Creating strategies for returning to business growth.
Within the past year, healthcare professionals have searched for and found solutions that bring real hope to the belief the global pandemic/recession will soon end.
As progress towards ending COVID-19 continues, business professionals are searching for the most effective near-term and long-term methods of restoring or exceeding the rates of growth they were enjoying prior to 2020.
We believe developing a digital business strategy can deliver cost savings to help achieve near-term business growth while preparing an enterprise for long-term business growth by effectively competing within the digital economy of the future.
The Digital Economy
The digital economy refers to a concept in which all economic activity is facilitated or managed through digital technologies, data, infrastructure, services, and products (OECD, 2020).
The digital economy captures decades of digital trends including:
- Declining enterprise computing costs
- Improvements in computing power and performance; unprecedent analytic capabilities
- Rapid growth in network speeds, affordability, and geographic reach
- High adoption rates of PCs, mobile, and other computing devices
These trends among others have set the stage to permanently alter how buying and selling will take place within and between local, regional, national, and international economies.
The emerging digital economy concept is so compelling that the world economists, financial experts, and others are currently investigating how they must substantially rewrite the rules governing how taxes, trade, tangible and intangible assets, and countless other financial issues will be assessed and valued in a digital economy.
Download Info-Tech’s Digital Economy Report
Signals of Change
60% of People on Earth Use the Internet (DataReportal, 2021) |
20% of Global Retail Sales Performed via E-commerce (eMarketer, 2021) |
6.64T Global Business-to-Business E-commerce Market (Derived from The Business Research Company, 2021) |
9.6% of US GDP ($21.4T) accounted for by the digital economy ($2.05T) (Bureau of Economic Analysis, 2021) |
The digital economy captures technological developments transforming the way in which we live, work, and socialize
Technological evolution
![this image contains a timeline of technological advances, from computers and information technology, to the digital economy of the future](png/technological-evolution-timeline.png)
Info-Tech’s approach to digital business strategy
A path to thrive in a digital economy.
- Identify top value chains to be transformed
- Identify a digitally enabled growth opportunity
- Transform stakeholder journeys
- Build a digital transformation roadmap
Info-Tech Insight
Pre-pandemic digital strategies have been primarily focused on automation. However, your post-pandemic digital strategy must focus on driving resilience for growth opportunities.
The Info-Tech difference:
- Understand how your organization creates value today to identify opportunities for digital transformation.
- Leverage strategic foresight to evaluate how complex trends can evolve over time and identify opportunities to leapfrog competitors.
- Design a journey map to empathize with your customers and identify opportunities to streamline or enhance existing and new experiences.
- Create a balanced roadmap that improves digital maturity and prepares you for long-term success in a digital economy.
A digital transformation starts by transforming how you deliver value today
As digital transformation is an effort to transform how you deliver value today, it is important to understand the different value-generating activities that deliver an outcome for and from your customers.
We do this by looking at value streams –which refer to the specific set of activities an industry player undertakes to create and capture value for and from the end consumer (and so the question to ask is, how do you make money as an organization?).
Our approach helps you to digitally transform those value streams that generate the most value for your organization.
Higher Education Value stream
Recruitment → Admission → Student Enrolment → Instruction & Research → Graduation → Advancement
Local Government Value Stream
Sustain Land, Property, and the Environment → Facilitate Civic Engagement → Protect Local Health and Safety → Grow the Economy → Provide Regional Infrastructure
Manufacturing Value Stream
Design Product → Produce Product → Sell Product
Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to identify your industry’s value streams
Assess your external environment to identify new value generators
Assessing your external environment allows you to identify trends that will have a high impact on how you deliver value today.
Traditionally, a PESTLE analysis is used to assess the external environment. While this is a helpful tool, it is often too broad as it identifies macro trends that are not relevant to an organization's addressable market. That is because not every factor that affects the macro environment (for example, the country of operation) affects a specific organization’s industry in the same way.
And so, instead of simply assessing the macro environment and trying to project its evolution along the PESTLE factors, we recommend to:
- Conduct a PESTLE first and deduce, from the analysis, what are possible shifts in six characteristics of an organization’s industry, or
- Proceed immediately with identifying evolutionary trends that impact the organization’s direct market.
Info-Tech Insight
While PESTLE is helpful to scan the macro environment, the analysis often lacks relevance to an organization’s industry.
An analysis of evolutionary shifts in five industry-specific characteristics would be more effective for identifying trends that impact the organization
A Market Evolution Trend Analysis (META) identifies changes in prevailing market conditions that are directly relevant to an organization’s industry, and thus provides some critical input to the strategy design process, since these trends can bring about strategic risks or opportunities.
Shifts in these five characteristics directly impact an organization:
ORGANIZATION
- Customer Expectations
- Talent Availability
- Regulatory System
- Supply Chain Continuity
- Technological Landscape
Capture existing and new value generators through a customer journey map
As we prioritize value streams, we break them down into value chains – that is the “string” of processes that interrelate that work.
However, once we identify these value chains and determine what parts we wish to digitally transform, we take on the perspective of the user, as the way they interact with your products and services will be different to the view of those within the organization who implement and provide those services.
This method allows us to build an empathetic and customer-centric lens, granting the capability to uncover challenges and potential opportunities. Here, we may define new experiences or redesign existing ones.
![This image contains an example of how a school might use a value chain and customer journey map. the value streams listed include: Recruitment; Admission; Student Enrolment; Instruction& Research; Graduation; and Advancement. the Value chain for the Instruction and Research Value stream. The value chain includes: Research; Course Creation, Delivery, and assessment. The Customer journey map for curricula delivery includes: Understanding the needs of students; Construct the course material; Deliver course material; Conduct assessment and; Upload Grades into system](png/customer-journey-map-for-curricula-delivery.png)
A digital transformation is not just about customer journeys but also about building business resilience
Pre-pandemic, a digital transformation was primarily focused around improving customer experiences. Today, we are facing a paradigm shift in the way in which we capture the priorities and strategies for a digital transformation.
As the world grows increasingly uncertain, organizations need to continue to focus on improving customer experience while simultaneously protecting their enterprise value.
Ultimately, a digital transformation has two purposes:
- The classical model – whereby there is a focus on improving digital experiences.
- Value protection or the reduction of enterprise risk by systematically identifying how the organization delivers value and digitally transforming it to protect future cashflows and improve the overall enterprise value.
Old Paradigm | → | New Paradigm |
---|---|---|
Predictable regulatory changes with incremental impact | → | Unpredictable regulatory changes with sweeping impact |
Reluctance to use digital collaboration | → | Wide acceptance of digital collaboration |
Varied landscape of brick-and-mortar channels | → | Last-mile consolidation |
Customers value brand | → | Customers value convenience/speed of fulfilment |
Intensity of talent wars depends on geography | → | Broadened battlefields for the war for talent |
Cloud-first strategies | → | Cloud-only strategies |
Physical assets | → | Aggressive asset decapitalization |
Digitalization of operational processes | → | Robotization of operational processes |
Customer experience design as an ideation mechanism | → | Business resilience for value protection and risk reduction |
Key deliverable:
Digital Business Strategy Presentation Template
A highly visual and compelling presentation template that enables easy customization and executive-facing content.
![three images are depicted, which contain slides from the Digital Business Strategy presentation template, which will be available in 2022.](png/digital-business-strategy-presentation-template.png)
*Coming in 2022
Blueprint deliverables
The Digital Business Strategy Workbook supports each step of this blueprint to help you accomplish your goals:
Initiative Prioritization
![A screenshot from the Initiative Prioritization blueprint is depicted, no words are legible in the image.](png/initiative-prioritization.png)
Use the weighted scorecard approach to evaluate and prioritize your opportunities and initiatives.
Roadmap Gantt Chart
![A screenshot from the Roadmap Gantt Chart blueprint is depicted, no words are legible in the image.](png/roadmap-gantt-chart.png)
Populate your Gantt chart to visually represent your key initiative plan over the next 12 months.
Journey Mapping Workbook
![A screenshot from the Journey Mapping Workbook blueprint is depicted, no words are legible in the image.](png/journey-mapping-workbook.png)
Populate the journey maps to evaluate a user experience over its end-to-end journey.
Info-Tech offers various levels of support to best suit your needs
DIY Toolkit
“Our team has already made this critical project a priority, and we have the time and capability, but some guidance along the way would be helpful.”
Guided Implementation
“Our team knows that we need to fix a process, but we need assistance to determine where to focus. Some check-ins along the way would help keep us on track.”
Workshop
“We need to hit the ground running and get this project kicked off immediately. Our team has the ability to take this over once we get a framework and strategy in place.”
Consulting
“Our team does not have the time or the knowledge to take this project on. We need assistance through the entirety of this project.”
Diagnostics and consistent frameworks used throughout all four options
Guided Implementation
What does a typical GI on this topic look like?
Phase 0 | Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 | Phase 4 |
---|---|---|---|---|
Call #1: Discuss business context and customize your organization’s capability map. |
Call #2: Assess business ecosystem. |
Call #3: Perform horizon scanning and trends identification. |
Call #5: Identify stakeholder personas and scenarios. |
Call #7: Discuss initiative generation and inputs into roadmap. |
Call #3: Identify how your organization creates value. |
Call #4: Discuss value chain impact. |
Call #6: Complete journey mapping exercise. |
Call #8: Summarize results and plan next steps. |
A Guided Implementation (GI) is a series of calls with an Info-Tech analyst to help implement our best practices in your organization.
A typical GI is between 8 to 12 calls over the course of 2 to 4 months.