Competitive pressures, new markets and new digital technologies are the main drivers of digital transformation. However, digital transformation is a complex issue that has a considerable effect on enterprises’ business operations. In fact, 70 percent of all digital transformation initiatives do not reach their goals, and of the US$1.3 trillion that was spent on digital transformation last year, it is estimated that US$900 billion went to waste.
We conducted a systematic literature review to simplify the digital transformation process by identifying reference practices related to digital transformation.
For this review, the search process consisted of a manual search for relevant articles using a search string in multiple data sets. After the search, 37 articles from 2004 to March 2019 were collected and reviewed.
The practices documented in the systemic literature review were identified as the following: manage digital strategy, manage business processes, manage innovation, manage changes, manage human resources, manage customer experience, manage culture, manage enterprise architecture, manage governance, manage information and data, manage collaboration, manage business model, manage knowledge, manage digitization and automation, manage communication, manage monitoring and control, manage business agility, manage products and services, manage portfolio, manage structure, manage digital channels, manage security and manage partnerships.
The research literature suggests a special emphasis on digital strategy, business processes and innovation given the high frequency with which these three practices were mentioned in the articles. In particular, several articles stressed the importance of having a digital strategy and recommended that creating such a strategy should be one of the first actions taken in a digital transformation. We conclude that, for the successful implementation of digital transformation, defining and planning a digital strategy plays a decisive role.
The next steps are to develop a maturity model, followed by the application of that model in real organizational contexts to demonstrate the model’s validity and usefulness. Another goal is to deploy a web application that enterprises can access to assess their digital transformation maturity.
Editor’s note: For further insights on this topic, read Tomás Aguiar, Silvia Bogea Gomes, Paulo Rupino da Cunha, and Miguel Mira da Silva’s recent Journal article, “Digital Transformation Practices Based on a Systematic Literature Review,” ISACA Journal, volume 1, 2021.
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