Electronic Markets on digital transformation methodologies
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EDITORIAL
Electronic Markets on digital transformation methodologies Rainer Alt 1 Published online: 16September 2019 # Institute of Applied Informatics at University of Leipzig 2019
Dear readers, Digital business has spread. This has been reflected in a recent study among 702 executives, which stated that “89% of organizations have adopted or have plans to adopt a digital first strategy” (IDG 2018, p. 2). The notion of “digital first” implies that information technology (IT) is key in enabling worker productivity, in improving business performance as well as in meeting customer experience expectations. To make use of these potentials firms are constantly faced with building up expertise in upcoming technologies. Among the current top five emerging technologies are such diverse fields as artificial intelligence, machine learning, internet of things, software defined networking and software defined storage (IDG 2018, p. 6f). Besides gathering these technological skills, adopting a digital first strategy means that the new technologies need to be embedded in aligned business strategies and processes, an undertaking commonly described as digital transformation (Hess et al. 2015; Bharadwaj et al. 2013). With "digital first" technology is no longer only following the business, but has become the primary driver of change. This is reflected in new organizational structures where board members are responsible for digitization (or digitalization as in (Alt 2018); both terms are used synonymously in the following). For example, in February 2019 the car manufacturer Volkswagen appointed a dedicated board member for all software activities of the brand (Volkswagen 2019). In addition, the three goals worker productivity, business performance and customer experience, suggest that transformation projects need to include internal (workers, decision-makers) as well as external (customers, suppliers) stakeholders.
* Rainer Alt [email protected] 1
Information Systems Institute, Leipzig University, Grimmaische Str., 12, 04109 Leipzig, Germany
Evolution of transformation methodologies Change is inherent in digital transformation projects. To successfully guide this change over time with many participants being involved, the information systems discipline has a long tradition in offering methodological support. Methods structure a transformation project in various activities and allow the coordinated collaboration of many participating actors. Following Brinkkemper (1996, p. 276) a method consists “of directions and rules, structured in a systematic way in development activities with corresponding development products”. The same source mentions techniques as “procedure[s], possibly with a prescribed notation, to perform a development activity”. Roughly speaking, methods determine the temporal relationships between activities occurring during a transformation project and techniques how the specifications of a transformation activity are documented. Such models are a major element in planning, communicating and documenting trans
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