Designed for Digital: How to Architect Your Business for Sustained Success

Practical advice for redesigning “big, old” companies for digital success, with examples from Amazon, BNY Mellon, LEGO, Philips, USAA, and many other global organizations.

Most established companies have deployed such digital technologies as the cloud, mobile apps, the internet of things, and artificial intelligence. But few established companies are designed for digital. This book offers an essential guide for retooling organizations for digital success. In the digital economy, rapid pace of change in technology capabilities and customer desires means that business strategy must be fluid. As a result, the authors explain, business design has become a critical management responsibility. Effective business design enables a company to quickly pivot in response to new competitive threats and opportunities. Most leaders today, however, rely on organizational structure to implement strategy, unaware that structure inhibits, rather than enables, agility. In companies that are designed for digital, people, processes, data, and technology are synchronized to identify and deliver innovative customer solutions―and redefine strategy. Digital design, not strategy, is what separates winners from losers in the digital economy.

Designed for Digital offers practical advice on digital transformation, with examples that include Amazon, BNY Mellon, DBS Bank, LEGO, Philips, Schneider Electric, USAA, and many other global organizations. Drawing on five years of research and in-depth case studies, the book is an essential guide for companies that want to disrupt rather than be disrupted in the new digital landscape.

Five Building Blocks of Digital Business Success

Shared Customer Insights

Operational Backbone

Digital Platform

Accountability Framework

External Developer Platform

About the Authors

Jeanne W. Ross is Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research.

Cynthia M. Beath is Professor Emerita at the University of Texas McCombs School of Business.

Martin Mocker is Professor at ESB Business School at Reutlingen University, Germany, and Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan Center for Information Systems Research.