Digital Vortex: How Today's Market Leaders Can Beat Disruptive Competitors at Their Own Game

by Michael Wade, Jeff Loucks, James Macaulay

Overview

WINNER OF THE 2017 AXIOM BEST BUSINESS BOOK AWARD

“Digital disruption” sounds like another business buzzword—until it happens to your company. Seemingly out of nowhere, startups and other tech-savvy disruptors attack. Your customers bolt for the door and revenues stall. Senior executives ignore the problem, or turn to yesterday’s management playbook. In months instead of years, you’ve gone from market leader to also-ran.

This scenario is beginning to play out in every industry. Everything that can be digitized—from products and services to the entire value chain—is being digitized, to the advantage of companies that can harness disruption. Unfortunately, few companies are building the organizational capabilities and strategic responses to compete in this stark new reality.

In Digital Vortex, you will learn how to use the business models and strategies of startups to your own advantage. Instead of waiting to be disrupted, you can maximize the value of your existing businesses and move into profitable new ones. Most importantly, you will learn how to build the agility to anticipate threats, sense opportunities, and seize them before your rivals do.

In today’s world there are two paths: navigating to a new digital future, or being engulfed by exponential competitive change. With recommendations backed by research with thousands of senior executives from market leaders and startups alike, this book gives you a compass to chart your own course—to compete with disruptors and win.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781945010002
Publisher:	Scantran SARL
Publication date:	06/15/2016
Pages:	266
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Michael Wade is the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation and Professor of Innovation and Strategy at IMD, a Swiss-based business school focusing on executive education. He is the Director of the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation, an IMD and Cisco initiative. Michael has more than 50 articles and presentations to his credit in leading academic journals and conferences and has written seven books and more than 20 case studies based on his experience working with organizations. He co-direct's IMD's Leading Digital Business Transformation executive program, and has designed several customized programs for companies such as Credit Suisse, Vodafone, Maersk, Zurich Financial, PSA Peugeot Citroen, and Cartier. He has provided consulting services, executive education, and expert evaluations to public and private sector organizations, including IBM, LVMH, Nestlé, Google, and Novartis.

Michael obtained Honors BA, MBA and PhD degrees from the Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, Canada. He has lived and worked in seven countries and currently resides with his family in Switzerland.

Jeff Loucks is a director with the Cisco Digitization Office and a visiting scholar at the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation, an IMD and Cisco initiative.

Jeff works with Global 500 firms and innovative startups to explore the strategies and concrete steps companies must take to thrive in an era of digitization. Through fifteen years of research, writing, and consulting, Jeff has helped companies capitalize on technological change by transforming their business models. Jeff is especially interested in the strategies organizations use to adapt to accelerating change. An extensive academic background complements his technology expertise. He wrote his PhD dissertation on Machiavelli (one of the world's great strategists) and draws upon philosophy, psychology, and political science to understand both institutional and human responses to today's escalating challenges.

Jeff has a BA in political science from The Ohio State University, and an MA and PhD in political science from the University of Toronto. He resides in Ohio with his wife and two sons.

James Macaulay is a director with the Cisco Digitization Office and a visiting scholar at the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation, an IMD and Cisco initiative.

With nearly two decades of high tech experience, and an extensive body of published research, he has been at the forefront of Cisco's thought leadership to define digital market transitions and their implications. He is a professional researcher and works with companies around the world to design their digital change roadmap. Prior to Cisco, he spent seven years as an entrepreneur, running a consulting startup focused on high tech market research and strategy. He has managed technology research portfolios in both the private and public sectors, having served as an analyst with Gartner in Silicon Valley and the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in Brussels.

James holds a BA (with honors) from Dalhousie University and an MA from the University of Toronto, both in political science. He currently lives in British Columbia with his wife and two children.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1: Disruption in the Digital Vortex
Chapter 2: Digital Value and Business Models
Chapter 3: Value Vampires and Value Vacancies
Chapter 4: Strategic Response Options
Chapter 5: Digital Business Agility
Chapter 6: Hyperawareness
Chapter 7: Informed Decision-making
Chapter 8: Fast Execution
Conclusion
Afterword
Acknowledgements
Appendix A: Digital Vortex Methodology
Appendix B: Digital Disruption Diagnostic
Appendix C: Digital Business Agility Diagnostic
Endnotes
Index
About the Authors

Editorial Reviews

"Digital disruption is real, is happening now, and is fundamentally changing the way organizations will compete in decades to come. There has never been time of greater promise, or greater peril. Those that don't transform now will quickly face mass extinction. The team at the Global Center for Digital Business Transformation are out in front of this mega-trend. Digital Vortex is a must-read for those who are ready to lead the way."

Doug Connor, Global Vice President for Digital Transformation, SAP

"'Digital' is more than technology; it's a way of life, and we all need to be prepared to participate. From value vampires to value vacancies, there's a new world of business strategy that needs to be mastered. Digital Vortex demystifies this next new frontier and provides ample guidance for the digitally unprepared."

Bill Fischer, co-author, The Idea Hunter: How to Find the Best Ideas and Make Them Happen, and co-creator, DeepDive™ innovation methodology

"If you're in senior management and still trying to crystallize how digital technologies are going to impact your business, read this book. It unravels the issues and helps you to set a clear path for the future."

Guy Laurence, President & CEO, Rogers Communications, Inc.

"Name an industry, and odds are it's being disrupted by competitors deploying digital technology. Digital Vortex is a research-based look at this phenomenon, as well as a savvy guide to how your company can gain the nimbleness required in this new environment."

Daniel H. Pink, author, Drive and To Sell Is Human

"In Digital Vortex, the author team from Cisco and IMD provides outstanding insight into how digital disruption threatens established companies. Critically, they offer the in-depth, actionable advice leaders need to deal with the inexorable wheel of technological innovation. A must-read for every executive concerned about company survival."

Michael Watkins, author, The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter

"Digital Vortex takes an immensely broad and complicated topic digital disruption and masterfully distills it in a practical and applicable way. If you want to understand disruptive competitors, and what they mean for your company, read this book. Once you do, your business will never be the same-and that is just what's required to thrive in today's digital world."

J.B. Wood, President &CEO, Technology Services Industry Association, and co-author, B4B: How Technology and Big Data Are Reinventing the Customer-Supplier Relationship

"To compete in the digital era, companies need to change their operating models every 18-24 months. For big companies, that pace of change can seem impossible, but their very survival depends on it. Digital Vortex offers the practical strategies and frameworks these companies need to increase agility so they can evolve their operating models continuously, and unlock entrepreneurship in their business."

Kevin Bandy, Chief Digital Officer, Cisco

"A comprehensive yet practical blueprint for any organization that aspires to build the foundational capabilities that will enable a resilient digital future."

Luis Hernandez Echavez, Executive Vice President, CEMEX

"By addressing the challenges to the incumbent from many perspectives; culturally, technologically, and strategically, Digital Vortex tackles all of the issues my company is dealing with in understanding the opportunities and threats inherent in the fast changing environment fueled by the new digital technologies. The case studies and "self-reflection" questions are invaluable in enabling us to relate to those who have been successful in this transition and gives us an urgent incentive to change."

Jonathan Grover, Chief Information Officer, Ferring Pharmaceuticals

From the Publisher