How to get ahead in digital transformation?

Adapting to digitalisation is ‘a way of making sure that one’s business or organisation does not get “disrupted”, Blomgren says, ‘or falls behind’. He suggests that beyond tapping into a set of tools, businesses looking to harness the power of digitalisation need to develop ‘a method of understanding about what is happening in the industrial business landscape due to it’.

‘Digital transformation ensures survival in the face of powerful changes in all sorts of fields. Take the home movie and video game rental chain Blockbuster. It went bust in 2010, due in large part to competition from Netflix. Had Blockbuster gone through a thorough and powerful digital transformation, it may have been able to compete in the new business landscape and avoid bankruptcy’, Blomgren asserts.

Regardless of where in the world a company or organisation is based, if it has ambitions within the area of digitalisation and wants to learn methods and tools to increase its impact, it needs to figure out how to ‘find a new position within the transforming business landscape, a landscape that is gradually evolving’, says Blomgren. ‘That way, the business can end up in a great place, a place where a company can prosper.’

However, if a business ignores digital transformation or fails to achieve it, it is likely to go under in the long run, Blomgren warns. He brings up the auto industry as an example. ’Self-driving vehicles will be widely available in the future. The question is not if that will happen but rather when. In the future, we won’t own our own cars. Instead, we will share cars or rent them or use them for single rides like taxis. That means that the number of cars on the roads will be significantly lower than now and a vast majority of car manufacturers will go out of business. If you want to stay in business, however, you can either try to become the very best manufacturer of self-driving vehicles, but that sector will be narrow and fiercely competitive. Another option, then, is to transform into a different type of company. In other words, you have to change your business model in order to stay relevant and profitable, and that is what the digital transformation methodology helps you do’, says Blomberg.