650 Management
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Recent MIT CISR research found that an obsessive focus on innovation is a characteristic of CIOs of top-performing firms. There are now more ways than ever that a firm can be disrupted by and disruptive with digital innovations. Indeed, a growing number of firms and individuals are using increasingly powerful digital technologies and figuring out ways to develop better products and services, better customer and employee experiences, and new business models. The new digital imperative is to compete with more types of digital innovations - and IT units must refine approaches to producing them. Based on an in-depth caste study, this briefing takes a look at how German car manufacturer AUDI AG has expanded its portfolio of digital innovations.
The MIT Center for Information Systems Research surveyed 255 executives in 2015 to investigate how companies are managing business complexity. This report details the findings from our analysis of the survey data:
1. Some product complexity adds value, some does not. Specifically, companies with more links (aka integration) in their product and service portfolio are higher performing. - 2. Product variety makes it more difficult for costumers and employees to get things done. These customers and employee difficulties impair a company's performance. - 3. Companies that excel at making it easy for employees and customers to get things done differentiate themselves by applying a set of complexity management practices around enterprise architecture, role reconfiguration, and the use of metrics and incentive systems.
Based on these findings, we recommend that companies make product complexity a strategic chois, invest in the abovementioned complexity management practices, and use costumer and employee dfficulties as key metrics for product innovation.
The proliferation of convergence of digital technologies SMACIT (social, mobile, analytics, cloud, and Internet of Things) has created significant threats and opportunities to established companies. Business leaders must rethink their business strategies and develop what we refer to as a digital strategy. Our research shows four keys to successfully defining and executing a digital strategy:
1. zeroing in on a customer engagement or digitized solutions strategy to guide the transformation, 2. building operational excellence, 3. creating a powerful digital services backbone to facilitate rapid innovation and responsiveness, and 4. ensuring ongoing organizational redesign. A list of publications from the research is provided at the end of this document.
In 2016, German car manufacturer the Audi Group (AUDI AG) was working on an expanding array of digital innovations. The goals of these innovations varied, and included strengthening customer- and employee-facing processes, digitally enhancing existing products, and developing new, potentially disruptive business models. Audi's IT unit was critical to each of these efforts. This case examines the different ways in which digitization can help to enhance and transform an organization's processes, products, and business models. The case also highlights the challenges that may arise as organizations attempt to expand and diversify their portfolio of digital innovations.