How To Lead In The Age Of Digital Disruption

An 8 part practical guide for non-tech leaders

Regardless of the part of the economy, you operate in, the digital disruption you see every day both at work and in your personal life can be daunting, even overwhelming on occasions.

What is digital disruption?

Put simply, digital disruption refers to changes enabled by technology that occur at a pace and magnitude that disrupt established ways of value creation, social interactions, doing business and more generally our thinking.

Why start on a digital change journey?

Digital disruptions present businesses with both opportunities and threats and compel enterprises of all sizes to embark on a digital journey to remain competitive. In this free, eight-part series, Malcolm Alder one of Australia’s most experienced strategy consultants shares why:

• Digital disruption is economy-wide, albeit at different speeds
• There’s growing evidence of corporate out-performance by digital leaders
• Customers now hold the power and they won’t let go
• Why managing digital disruption is critical for all senior leaders - not just the CTO.

Written for business leaders with a non-technical background, this guide provides practical advice on how to start on a digital journey, prioritise projects, find the right advice and common pitfalls to avoid. Malcolm also shares in-depth case studies and research illustrating how other leading enterprises are dealing with disruption.

Read the introduction:

“The single most frequent failure in the history of forecasting has been grossly underestimating the impact of technologies.” - Peter Schwartz, The Art of the Long View, 1991. Peter Schwartz is a futurist who was a pioneer of scenario planning at Royal Dutch Shell in the 1980s. If his observation was true 24 years ago, it is even more so today. Think back on your own life just 10 years’ ago. It was well after the Sydney Olympics and 9/11 but before smartphones, iPads, pervasive online shopping, GPS in cars, Fitbits, drones and Netflix. Google, Facebook, eBay and Amazon were early growth stocks and Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat et al was not yet conceived. Against that backdrop and in the light of Schwartz’s observation, now try to project forward another 10 years. The mind boggles. The developments listed above are deliberately consumer-centric. Consumer technology and adaptation to it, in the great majority of cases, now move far more quickly than do companies – or the public sector. It certainly moves faster than legislation and regulatory protection. Economic power has shifted into the hands of the people and it’s not moving back. Today’s consumers expect to be able to interact anytime, anywhere through any device not just with their favourite entertainment and consumer brands but also with Government, utility providers, public transport etc. Nor is this confined just to individuals. Small traders expect real-time digital access to their suppliers. Large companies expect to place standard orders through efficient, reliable e-commerce platforms. Staff expect to share knowledge and interact with their colleagues regardless of location and with no time delay. When these sorts of expectations are made a reality, organisations become genuinely customer-centric, more efficient and have highly engaged employees. It’s a compelling mandate for change.

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