Digital Transformation became a buzzword to justify large corporate investments in information systems. Unfortunately, 70% of projects failed to deliver the projected gains in efficiency (Tabrizi, Behnam, Ed Lam, Kirk Girard, and Vernon Irvin. 2019. “Digital Transformation Is Not About Technology.” Harvard Business Review, March 13, 2019). Technology components represent only 30% of the investments. Operational transformation and project support demand 70% of the efforts (Khodabandeh, Shervin, Ronny Fehling, Burt LaFountain, Sylvain Duranton, Annais Paetsch, and Martin Reeves. 2020. “How to Win with Artificial Intelligence.” BCG. August 19, 2020 )
Addressing opportunities offered by digitalization requires more than brilliant engineers and a substantial budget to develop or acquire technology. It is a deep transformation project addressing multiple intertwined technologies, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain based development, augmented and virtual reality , internet of things, etc. They have the potential to transform marketing, sales, operations, in almost all industries from agriculture to banking.
The 4D framework structures a more efficient approach to the development of business oriented solutionn; it is an adaptation to digital transformation what of I had observed to transform in depth the approach of organizations to supplier management, to focus on the capture of long term strategic advantages rather than short term cash gains, identifying the need to consider governance and culture to increase the likelyhood of success of digital transformation initiatives.
The 4 D Framework for Digital Transformation
