Digital Business Primer (3rd Edition)

Welcome to A Digital Business Primer (3^rd edition). This is a thrilling new text on the fourth industrial revolution and digital business, aimed at practitioners, managers, and other non-technical professionals whose lives are increasingly affected by digital technologies.

It has become practically axiomatic that technology is a pervasive and accelerating influence on organizations, with wide-reaching impacts on every level of management and business function, from product design and customer experience to HRM, finance and all other areas of organizational functioning.

However, there are so many unknowns and underdeveloped areas of knowledge within the arenas of digitalization and the fourth industrial revolution. What do these things refer to in the first place? What really are the implications for organizational strategy – does strategy change fundamentally, or rather adapt traditional thinking and models to new realities? How do organizations effectively and correctly transform themselves to these forces, in order to thrive in our new realities? It is these questions that are addressed in A Digital Business Primer (3^rd Edition).

The book addresses some of these questions in four parts comprising 20 chapters:

 

Part I gives a broad-ranging introduction to digitalization and digital business.

 

• Chapter 1 discusses core concepts in digitalization, essentially asking the question “what is digitalization?”
• Chapter 2 contemplates why one might consider entering into a digitalization project as individuals, organizations.
• Chapter 3 discusses when technological disruptions occur, which contemplates core factors which contribute to technological disruptions.
• Chapter 4 gives three brief case studies, each involving potentially disruptive 3D printing technology in three different industries. These cases challenge the reader to apply the concepts of convergence, the crucial triad, and technological adoption which were covered in the prior chapter.
• Chapter 5 covers various topics regarding how technological and digital disruptions occur and have occurred, ranging from trends on technology and society to organizational and individual trends which help us to predict future technological disruptions.
• Chapter 6 discusses various topics around where digital disruption has, is, and to some extent is not occurring (with the latter topic reflecting the digital divide).
• Chapter 7 provides an integrative case study on Google Maps that not only helps to illustrate the concepts of prior chapters, but also to provide thought challenges for the reader.

 

Part II expands on the core 4IR technologies in organizational context:

• Chapter 8 gives more detail on the major 4IR technologies.
• Chapter 9 gives a capstone technology case on the port of Rotterdam.
• Chapter 10 provides an array of other shorter case studies in organizational applications or experiences of digital technologies.

 

Part III discusses business strategy in the digital era:

• Chapter 11 provides an initial set of strategy in the digital era case studies.
• Chapter 12 gives an overview of traditional strategy, and discusses how digital disruption affects traditional strategy.
• Chapter 13 explores business models, including some specific topics germane to digital business such as free and freemium business models.
• Chapter 14 covers platform businesses.

 

Part IV gives some selected topics in digital transformation and maturity, namely:

• Chapter 15 discusses digital maturity and presents a comprehensive model for understanding and measuring it.
• Chapter 16 unpacks digital transformation and change management.
• Chapter 17 gives a detailed case study on Zappos, illustrating elements of digital maturity in action with a particular focus on culture and structure.
• Chapter 18 is on organizational culture in the digital age.
• Chapter 19 covers gamification.
• Chapter 20 provides several case studies in the area of digital transformation & maturity.