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The Digital Matrix: New Rules for Business Transformation through Technology
Ambitious digital-driven startups are now creating and cornering new markets in every sector. And yet, most legacy businesses continue to operate by old playbooks. Most are not keeping pace with the changes in their industry, let alone leading the way-what is yours doing? The Digital Matrix will help you understand the three types of players that are shaping the new business landscape; the three phases of transformation that every firm will encounter on its journey to business reinvention; and the three winning moves that will ensure your company's success along the way.
With The Digital Matrix, you will:
Learn to navigate the world of digital ecosystems.
Discover ways of competing and collaborating with other companies to create and capture value.
Realize how powerful machines can amplify your company's human talent.
Learn to assemble the team to experiment with new ideas, re-examine your core beliefs, and reinvent your business rulebook for the digital future.
Your company's future depends on its ability to harness digital technology.
Don't wait!
With The Digital Matrix, you will:
Learn to navigate the world of digital ecosystems.
Discover ways of competing and collaborating with other companies to create and capture value.
Realize how powerful machines can amplify your company's human talent.
Learn to assemble the team to experiment with new ideas, re-examine your core beliefs, and reinvent your business rulebook for the digital future.
Your company's future depends on its ability to harness digital technology.
Don't wait!
285 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 10, 2017
72 people are currently reading
325 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
January 21, 2023
"The future is exciting for those who can see the possibilities and dark for those who can't" - Venkat Venkatraman
I recently had the chance to read "The Digital Matrix" by Venkat Venkatraman, a book recommended by a professor during my MBA exchange at ESSEC Business School. The book provides a framework for understanding the digital world and how to succeed in it. The author argues that in today's digital age, companies need to focus on achieving scale, scope and speed in order to succeed. The traditional concept of first-mover advantage has been replaced by fast-mover advantage.
Many people tend to believe that digital transformation is just about using new technologies. But in reality, it's about understanding the industry and breaking the status quo of current processes. It's about shaping the company around technology rather than just adding technology to it.
A simple example would be a digitized process where a manager receives an automatic email for approval. Using technology at the core means finding a way to avoid that email altogether by changing the approval process with newer or even older technologies. The focus should be on changing the process rather than the technology. The question to ask is what technology can we use to avoid having to submit a process for approval? How can we automate earlier steps with existing technology to prevent errors? Should we use AI for approvals and use the email as a supervision step rather than a bottleneck?
What I liked most about the book is how it doesn't just provide frameworks, but also teaches readers how to analyze and place themselves and their companies in different quadrants of the matrix. This helps to understand the competencies of the company and create strategies for digitization that make sense in the complex context of the digital world. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but the right strategy can greatly reduce the risk of the company becoming obsolete.
The author also emphasizes that in today's digital age, companies operate in ecosystems rather than industries. The speed of a company is only as fast as the slowest one in its ecosystem, which is why it's important to build networks and cooperate to accelerate. We have moved from traditional competition to "coopetition", where the same companies can compete in one area and cooperate and collaborate in another. For example, Apple may pay Samsung to manufacture their screens, and Netflix may pay Amazon for its servers, even though they are considered competitors in other areas. Understanding these types of entanglements in different ecosystems is crucial to orchestrate moves and strategies in this century.
"The Digital Matrix" is a must-read for managers and directors who want to understand the nuances of digital transformation and how to succeed in the digital world. It provides a framework for understanding the digital world and how to succeed in it. It's an excellent guide to improve the digital capabilities of the organization and to create a strategy that will keep the company relevant in the digital age.
"Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future" - John F. Kennedy.
(Yes, I did use ChatGPT to improve the grammar, style and language of this post :) )
I recently had the chance to read "The Digital Matrix" by Venkat Venkatraman, a book recommended by a professor during my MBA exchange at ESSEC Business School. The book provides a framework for understanding the digital world and how to succeed in it. The author argues that in today's digital age, companies need to focus on achieving scale, scope and speed in order to succeed. The traditional concept of first-mover advantage has been replaced by fast-mover advantage.
Many people tend to believe that digital transformation is just about using new technologies. But in reality, it's about understanding the industry and breaking the status quo of current processes. It's about shaping the company around technology rather than just adding technology to it.
A simple example would be a digitized process where a manager receives an automatic email for approval. Using technology at the core means finding a way to avoid that email altogether by changing the approval process with newer or even older technologies. The focus should be on changing the process rather than the technology. The question to ask is what technology can we use to avoid having to submit a process for approval? How can we automate earlier steps with existing technology to prevent errors? Should we use AI for approvals and use the email as a supervision step rather than a bottleneck?
What I liked most about the book is how it doesn't just provide frameworks, but also teaches readers how to analyze and place themselves and their companies in different quadrants of the matrix. This helps to understand the competencies of the company and create strategies for digitization that make sense in the complex context of the digital world. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, but the right strategy can greatly reduce the risk of the company becoming obsolete.
The author also emphasizes that in today's digital age, companies operate in ecosystems rather than industries. The speed of a company is only as fast as the slowest one in its ecosystem, which is why it's important to build networks and cooperate to accelerate. We have moved from traditional competition to "coopetition", where the same companies can compete in one area and cooperate and collaborate in another. For example, Apple may pay Samsung to manufacture their screens, and Netflix may pay Amazon for its servers, even though they are considered competitors in other areas. Understanding these types of entanglements in different ecosystems is crucial to orchestrate moves and strategies in this century.
"The Digital Matrix" is a must-read for managers and directors who want to understand the nuances of digital transformation and how to succeed in the digital world. It provides a framework for understanding the digital world and how to succeed in it. It's an excellent guide to improve the digital capabilities of the organization and to create a strategy that will keep the company relevant in the digital age.
"Change is the law of life and those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future" - John F. Kennedy.
(Yes, I did use ChatGPT to improve the grammar, style and language of this post :) )
January 6, 2018
I was hoping to start 2018 on a high point, books-wise, but unfortunately The Digital Matrix didn't quite do it for me. I'd just finished Brian Kernighan's brilliant Understanding the Digital World, which breaks down for the layman how computers, digital infrastructure and services work. I'd hoped that The Digital Matrix would help me understand what being a digital organisation would entail and how incumbents (including governments) whose roots were pre-digital could make the necessary shifts.
To be fair, the Digital Matrix does cover the latter point (it starts off assuming everyone understands what being "digital" means and entails; so if you're hoping for a grounding in Digital 101, you'll have to look elsewhere and content yourself with sweeping and somewhat fluffy statements in the opening chapters of The Digital Matrix such as "Digital is eating the physical, industrial world", "digital technology is critical to every industry and every company", "digital...mean[s] embracing the new business infrastructure that's at the intersection of...'powerful computing, pervasive connectivity and potent cloud'", and "digitisation is critical for every business".)
The Digital Matrix was a two star book for me because whatever substance it had was buried underneath its sledgehammer style. (Are all business books written in this style?)
#1: The confident assertions bordering on bombast - "I will show you three winning moves..."; "this book shows you ways to structure and nurture ecosystems that cut across industry boundaries"; "this book shows you ways to...position yourself for relevance in the digital future"; "this book shows you how to use metrics that are subtle and directionally right" (directionally right??); "now that you've been schooled on theories of disruption from the periphery". And so on.
#2: The unnecessary padding. I get that repeating points, summarising key points at the end of the chapter, drawing connections between content by referring to earlier points made are all techniques to help consolidate learning. But these points can be succinct or verbose. Laying out for the reader what they can expect in the next few chapters/sections can be done factually or in a self-congratulatory tone.
But there is substance to be found if you're patient enough to wade through the fluffy filler material. The examples Venkatraman cites, though fairly well known (Uber, AirBnB, Netflix, Google, Apple, IBM, GE, Honeywell, Ford, etc) nonetheless make for good reading and illustrate how business models and assumptions have shifted dramatically. Venkatraman does offer some useful tips on how incumbents might go about formulating an initial response to digital shifts around them - establishing a "sense-making unit" in centres of digital innovation, designing "frame-storming" workshops to dig into problems and challenge assumptions, ask fundamental questions and through this, spark creativity, designing tactical experiments to examine the business impacts of technologies. And I found chapter 8 on thinking about how digital technologies like AI could augment processes (e.g. Narrative Science's Quill, IBM Watson and Wipro's Holmes) and amplify jobs, not just automate existing tasks, thought provoking.
Chapt 10, which lays out the "Rules Matrix" for going about the digital transformation journey, also provides some food for thought (though it requires you to sift for the gems buried in the 33 pages). The 9 rules are basically issues to analyse when assessing your current position and where you might want to be (to guide your thinking on what you need to do next). (a) select one or more ecosystems that can help you learn to craft your digital transformation journey, like how GE focussed on FB because "it wanted to become a 'platform and applications company' or industrial machines and systems", or how IBM focussed on the blockchain and its role in enhancing security, building trust whilst protecting privacy. (b) explore capability co-creation options. (c) examine the intersection of human talent and power. (d) engage (other players in) ecosystems as transformational triggers. (e) navigate your preferential partnerships. (f) augment smart humans with powerful machines. (g) design your new digital ecosystems. (h) co-create new business capabilities with preferred partners. (i) differentiate with computer capital and human capital working together.
To be fair, the Digital Matrix does cover the latter point (it starts off assuming everyone understands what being "digital" means and entails; so if you're hoping for a grounding in Digital 101, you'll have to look elsewhere and content yourself with sweeping and somewhat fluffy statements in the opening chapters of The Digital Matrix such as "Digital is eating the physical, industrial world", "digital technology is critical to every industry and every company", "digital...mean[s] embracing the new business infrastructure that's at the intersection of...'powerful computing, pervasive connectivity and potent cloud'", and "digitisation is critical for every business".)
The Digital Matrix was a two star book for me because whatever substance it had was buried underneath its sledgehammer style. (Are all business books written in this style?)
#1: The confident assertions bordering on bombast - "I will show you three winning moves..."; "this book shows you ways to structure and nurture ecosystems that cut across industry boundaries"; "this book shows you ways to...position yourself for relevance in the digital future"; "this book shows you how to use metrics that are subtle and directionally right" (directionally right??); "now that you've been schooled on theories of disruption from the periphery". And so on.
#2: The unnecessary padding. I get that repeating points, summarising key points at the end of the chapter, drawing connections between content by referring to earlier points made are all techniques to help consolidate learning. But these points can be succinct or verbose. Laying out for the reader what they can expect in the next few chapters/sections can be done factually or in a self-congratulatory tone.
But there is substance to be found if you're patient enough to wade through the fluffy filler material. The examples Venkatraman cites, though fairly well known (Uber, AirBnB, Netflix, Google, Apple, IBM, GE, Honeywell, Ford, etc) nonetheless make for good reading and illustrate how business models and assumptions have shifted dramatically. Venkatraman does offer some useful tips on how incumbents might go about formulating an initial response to digital shifts around them - establishing a "sense-making unit" in centres of digital innovation, designing "frame-storming" workshops to dig into problems and challenge assumptions, ask fundamental questions and through this, spark creativity, designing tactical experiments to examine the business impacts of technologies. And I found chapter 8 on thinking about how digital technologies like AI could augment processes (e.g. Narrative Science's Quill, IBM Watson and Wipro's Holmes) and amplify jobs, not just automate existing tasks, thought provoking.
Chapt 10, which lays out the "Rules Matrix" for going about the digital transformation journey, also provides some food for thought (though it requires you to sift for the gems buried in the 33 pages). The 9 rules are basically issues to analyse when assessing your current position and where you might want to be (to guide your thinking on what you need to do next). (a) select one or more ecosystems that can help you learn to craft your digital transformation journey, like how GE focussed on FB because "it wanted to become a 'platform and applications company' or industrial machines and systems", or how IBM focussed on the blockchain and its role in enhancing security, building trust whilst protecting privacy. (b) explore capability co-creation options. (c) examine the intersection of human talent and power. (d) engage (other players in) ecosystems as transformational triggers. (e) navigate your preferential partnerships. (f) augment smart humans with powerful machines. (g) design your new digital ecosystems. (h) co-create new business capabilities with preferred partners. (i) differentiate with computer capital and human capital working together.
September 3, 2022
The Digital Matrix by Venkat Venkatraman looks at how countries are adapting to the new digital world and pivoting from their traditional industries to a digital one. He ahs created a matrix that he uses to assess where a company is on its path of digital transformation and strategies to achieve it. This topic which will face virtually every company is well constructed and laid out here with practical advice for how to handle the transition. The book is aimed at C-Suite and management levels of how to plan for digitalization of their industry and their business unit. I think for me the most surprising part was not realizing how GE was transition itself. Having studied GE in college long ago (and now working in an industry they are not present it) I found it interesting to see how they have transformed and positioned themselves for the future. While it can be repetitive at time this book hits home a lot of key points and definitely a shining example of what needs to be thought about for companies making the transition to the digital world.
May 15, 2020
A Must Read i my view. Prof. Venkat also has a course in EdX. The Book really underlines the concepts why digital is significant and helps us with speed, scale and similar factors which are important to understand. This is one of the books which clubs theory with practice and makes us look through an approach to achieve a transformation in a practically organized framework.
April 8, 2018
Really useful framework that shows patterns and practices for digital transformation applied in the real life and in the daily business activities.
September 20, 2020
Excellent!
If you want to know where to start in your DT journey, this is the book. The Digital Matrix is the best reference in DT strategy that I have read
If you want to know where to start in your DT journey, this is the book. The Digital Matrix is the best reference in DT strategy that I have read
October 20, 2020
An essential and a must-read book for shaping business strategy in the ages of digitalization!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews