Digital transformation is the most consequential strategic challenge facing established organizations across virtually every industry. It is not merely a technology implementation challenge — it is a fundamental business transformation challenge in which technology is the enabler but strategy, leadership, culture, and organizational capability are the determinants of success or failure. DB8720 develops the doctoral-level understanding of digital transformation that DBA students need to both contribute to and lead digital transformation initiatives in their organizations.
Digital transformation: theory and research
Foundational frameworks in the digital transformation literature
- What digital transformation is (and is not): DB8720 examines the definitional landscape of digital transformation — a concept that has attracted so much organizational and consulting attention that the term has become simultaneously ubiquitous and imprecise. The scholarly literature (Vial, 2019; Westerman et al., 2014; Bharadwaj et al., 2013) converges on several key dimensions. Digital transformation involves the use of digital technologies (AI, cloud computing, mobile, analytics, IoT, blockchain, and their combinations) to fundamentally change business processes, organizational capabilities, and the value delivered to customers — not merely improving existing processes through technology, but creating new value creation and capture models. It differs from digitization (converting analog content to digital format) and digitalization (using digital technology to improve existing processes) in that transformation involves a qualitative change in the organization's strategic capabilities and business model, not just improved efficiency in existing operations. The course also examines the empirical evidence on digital transformation outcomes — the research is sobering: success rates vary widely across studies, but multiple large-sample surveys find that between 65% and 85% of digital transformation initiatives fail to meet their original objectives — a failure rate that raises important questions about how organizations are approaching transformation and what distinguishes the minority that succeeds from the majority that does not
- Westerman et al.'s digital transformation framework: George Westerman, Didier Bonnet, and Andrew McAfee's (2014) research on digital transformation at large companies identifies two dimensions of digital capability that together determine digital maturity: digital intensity (the investment in technology-enabled initiatives including customer experience transformation, worker enablement, and operational improvement) and transformation management intensity (the leadership capability to drive organizational change using digital technology, including digital vision, governance, and engagement). The research identified four digital maturity archetypes — Beginners (low on both dimensions), Conservatives (high management, low digital), Fashionistas (high digital, low management), and Digirati (high on both dimensions, consistently outperforming industry peers financially) — and found that Digirati outperformed their industry peers substantially on revenue generation and profitability
Digital ecosystems and platform strategy
DB8720 examines digital ecosystems and platform strategy as the dominant architectural pattern of digital market competition. Platform businesses — organizations that create value by facilitating interactions between multiple participant groups (producers and consumers, buyers and sellers, developers and users) rather than by producing goods or services themselves — have become among the most valuable businesses in the world. The economics of platform businesses are fundamentally different from the economics of traditional pipeline businesses: platforms benefit from network effects (the value of the platform increases as more participants join, which creates powerful winner-take-most dynamics in many digital markets); low marginal cost of adding participants (unlike traditional businesses where serving more customers typically increases proportionate costs); and data-driven improvement (more participants generate more data that improves the platform's algorithms, recommendations, and matching quality — creating self-reinforcing competitive advantage). The course examines Eisenmann, Parker, and Van Alstyne's (2006) platform strategy framework; Rochet and Tirole's (2003) economics of two-sided markets; and Parker, Van Alstyne, and Choudary's (2016) Platform Revolution framework — developing the analytical toolkit to evaluate whether platform strategies are appropriate for specific competitive contexts and how incumbent pipeline businesses can respond to platform-based competitive disruption.
Competitive planning in digital markets
DB8720 develops competitive strategy frameworks specifically for digital market contexts — recognizing that traditional competitive strategy tools were developed for relatively stable, bounded industries and may require significant adaptation for digital markets characterized by winner-take-most network effects, high pace of technological change, and blurring industry boundaries. The course examines how digital technologies change the five competitive forces: digital distribution and low customer switching costs can intensify competitive rivalry; digital channels reduce buyer information asymmetries and search costs, increasing buyer power; digital platforms often create new substitutes that cross traditional industry boundaries; and digital scale advantages can create high barriers to entry that protect established platform leaders while simultaneously making entry dramatically easier in adjacent market segments. The course also examines the specific competitive challenges of digital market entry, digital market leadership, and responding to digital disruption — applying these analyses to scenarios from industrial, product-based, and market-facing competitive contexts.
Digital transformation project management and proposals
DB8720 develops practical digital transformation project management competencies — the ability to plan, organize, and lead the complex organizational initiatives that digital transformation requires. The course examines the specific project management challenges of digital transformation: scope creep (the difficulty of defining bounded scope in transformation initiatives where everything is potentially connected to everything else); benefit realization (the challenge of measuring transformation ROI when benefits accrue over time and are often attributed to multiple simultaneous initiatives); organizational change management (the people-side change management that technology implementation requires); vendor and partner management (the complex ecosystem of technology vendors, systems integrators, and consultants that most transformations require); and governance (the decision-making structures that enable rapid digital initiative execution while maintaining strategic coherence and risk management). The course requires abbreviated transformation proposal development — structured documents that assess transformation opportunity, define scope and approach, estimate benefit and cost, identify risks and mitigations, and propose governance — developing the professional competency of translating digital transformation strategy into actionable investment proposals that senior stakeholders can evaluate and approve.
DB8720 assignments include digital transformation analyses, ecosystem assessments, competitive digital strategy plans, and abbreviated transformation proposals
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Frequently asked questions
DB8720 examines the empirical evidence on digital transformation success factors — moving beyond the case study narratives that dominate the popular literature (Amazon, Netflix, and LEGO are repeatedly cited in transformation success stories) to examine what more systematic research reveals about the factors that predict transformation success. The McKinsey research on digital transformation (2018, 2021) identifies several organizational factors associated with above-average success probability: strong leadership commitment at the CEO and senior leadership level (transformation is a leadership challenge, not a technology challenge — organizations where digital transformation is delegated to a CIO or CDO without active CEO engagement consistently underperform); talent investment that goes beyond hiring a few digital experts to building broader organizational digital capability; organizational agility (the ability to run multiple rapid experiments, learn quickly, and scale what works) rather than large waterfall-style transformation programs; and a clear customer-outcome focus (transformation success is measured by customer experience and business outcomes rather than technology implementation milestones). The MIT Sloan Management Review research (Weill & Woerner, 2018) on what digitally transformed companies do differently finds that success correlates with: a clear and shared understanding of what the organization is trying to transform to (not just from); organizational structure designed around customer journeys and ecosystem relationships rather than functional silos; and investments in data infrastructure that enable the analytics and AI capabilities that digital business models require. DB8720 also examines the failure modes: the "shiny object" trap of adopting digital technologies without clear business value justification; underestimating the organizational change management requirements; confusing digitalization (improving existing processes) with transformation (creating new value models); and insufficiently addressing the talent gaps that digital transformation requires in the workforce as a whole, not just in technology roles.