Future Ready: The Four Pathways to Capturing Digital Value

Enterprise digital transformation can be complex and confusing. Where to start? What to do? How to lead? How to measure? Are among some of the questions executives ask, even executives during enterprise digital transformation. Future Ready by Stephanie Woerner, Peter Weill and Ina Sebastian provides clear, actionable, and readily understandable guidance.Future Ready seeks to provide a playbook for firms to succeed in the digital economy. The book is based on distilling the experiences and results from hundreds of transformation initiatives and companies. It presents the pathways that top performers have used to create value and achieve results.Four Paths to becoming future ready highlight different ways that companies can become a top performer in digital. These paths recognize the reality that there is no single recipe for success. The book spends a chapter on each path supported by multiple case studies that give you the confidence to understand what needs to be done. Those paths include:Pathway 1: Industrialize by simplifying and hardening services and processes into a digital platform that is the basis for innovation.Pathway 2: Delight Customers First by enabling teams to create compelling customer experiences and innovate with technology, that evolve into scaled platforms and operational efficiency.Pathway 3: Alternate the Focus, like Stair Steps, moving in a planful way between industrializing and customer experiencePathway 4: Creating a New Unit, creating a born digital business or business unit.The authors do more than explain these different paths, they illustrate them with case study examples and provide guidance on which path your company should consider.More than outlining different paths, the book highlights the three different kinds of value are possible as you become more future ready. These includeValue from Customers, how to employ technology to increase revenue per customer.Value from Operations, reducing cost and increasing speed through intelligence and simplified processes/servicesValue from Ecosystems, increased revenue through expanding market accessed and engagement from participating in ecosystems.Bottom Line: This is the book executives should consult when seeking to make transformational change involving digital technology – what the authors call being Future Ready.Highest Recommendation

In the best tradition of MIT CISR, this is a phenomenal book for C-Level executives who want to unlock the true value of digital initiatives - beyond buzzwords, fads and consulting talk.Grounded on detailed research, easy to understand frameworks, insightful examples, but especially containing very practical advise, this is a must-read for anyone who is feeling the pressure of digital transformation.