Leveraging Digital Innovation : Lessons for Implementation

Abstract

Digital technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for organizations to realize efficiency gains and explore new lines of business. However, their integration into existing corporate structures and routines hardly materializes without frictions and the need for organizational adaptation. This collection of corporate narratives assembles best practice cases of companies – ranging from startups to multinational players and Hidden Champions – that have successfully managed to implement and leverage these innovations. Ten distinct use cases focus on three disruptive technologies, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and Robotic Process Automation. Interviews with practitioners address hurdles they encountered, and ways how to gain strategic support of key stakeholders within the organization. The ambition of this compilation is to describe concrete initiatives and derive insights from the experience of implementing disruptive technologies in a given corporate context. It highlights the advantages and potential pitfalls of differing pathways of implementation, including an internal setup with centers of excellence sharing their expertise with business units, the move towards an ambidextrous organization, and joint ventures with niche players in the larger innovation ecosystem. Based on their aggregated experience, this book provides a roadmap for executives how to become agents of change and implement digital transformation in their organizations. For the academic audience, the testimonials of practitioners offer ethnographic insights that depict the complexity of actual corporate change initiatives within a context of uncertainty and mimetic isomorphism.