How Leaders Take Digital to the Core

Three Disruptive Digital Forces

1. Resolution revolution – The effect of our ability to see and sense in finite detail the physical and digital worlds and precisely control things, events, and outcomes.

2. Compound uncertainty – The intertwined timing opportunity and uncertainty of the three tipping points of technology performance, regulatory change and cultural acceptance.

3. Boundary blurring – Digital and physical worlds merge and create alterations in industries and organizational structures as we know them.

Leaders who fail to acknowledge and attend to all three forces may miss opportunities, or watch their industries or enterprises subsumed by competitors or start-ups. Mr. Babolat became an early mover in the tennis industry by making a strategic bet and potentially risking the company reputation on a major shift to digital business. On a grander scale, GE has done this by betting on the industrial Internet.

The leaders of these, and other companies making strong digital moves, operate at three levels to remaster leadership for the digital age.

Three Leadership Levels for Digital Business

Remap your industry – How must your worldview change, and what fundamental industry paradigms must you rethink?

Remodel your enterprise – What does your enterprise need to become, and how will you redefine your company?

Remake yourself – Who do you need to be, and how must you remake yourself as a digital era relevant leader?

Mark Fields, Ford CEO, has remapped the automotive industry by initiating global experiments to rethink transportation and positioning Ford as a “mobility company.” William Ruh, Vice President, Global Technology Director at GE, has led development of the Predix platform to give its large industrial clients the ability to put digital into the core of its products. In essence, leaders who assess the key forces at work, and exploit them to their advantage, can remaster their organizations and themselves to succeed.