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Strategic approaches to digital marketing recognise clearer differentiations that move beyond broad brush identifications of ‘users’. In combination, the organisation, the buyer persona and the several elements of digital marketing strategy represent the Buyer Persona Spring. The more integrated use of data throughout the organisation is the key driver to increasing digital maturity. Even traditional business models, for example, taxis and bed and breakfasts, have felt the influence of digital technology through the impact of the Uber and AirBnB apps and their associated business models. With the business models of these disruptors built around the sharing economy and social networking channels, the challenge they present to other models is the way they resist being pinned down to conventional definitions or practices. Increasing business transparency, innovative business models and the use of sharing and crowdsourcing challenge existing labels and traditional definitions requiring deeper reflection and more mature responses from an organization.

To attract a generation of workers and consumers who have never known a world without Wi-Fi, smartphones, or social media, organizations increasingly have no choice but to incorporate digital technology into every aspect of their operations and processes. The leaders of Hydro-X, a privately owned British enterprise, met the challenge of digital transformation by forming a knowledge exchange partnership with a local university and applying two business models to assess the current state of digital maturity at the firm and map out a strategy to improve it. Their experiences reflect the HINGE project planning methodology: Horizon scanning to evaluate the competition, Internal auditing, New model creation, Gap analysis, and Evaluation of options to determine next steps. As a result of their efforts, Hydro-X fostered an intrapreneurial spirit among its staff and refined its e-commerce platform to digitally target key audiences in order to tap into a new source of revenue.

Emerging technologies are having a profound impact upon business as individuals and organisations increasingly embrace the benefits of the ‘always on’ attitude that digital technologies produce. The use of the web, apps, cloud storage, GPS and Internet-connected devices has transformed the way we live, learn, play and interact – yet how a business can fully benefit from this transformation is not always clear. In response, this book enables students and business leaders to take a strategic and sustainable approach to realising the value of digital technologies. It offers results-driven solutions that successfully transform organisations into data-driven, people-focused businesses capable of sustainably competing at a global level. Split across four key parts, the material moves through understanding digital business to planning, implementing and assessing digital transformation. The current challenges facing all small organisations, including limited resources, financial pressures and the lack of dedicated IT departments, are explored. The authors consider the ways in which innovation can increase competitive advantage, how innovative business models can create new opportunities and how a data-driven perspective can release embedded value within the organisation. Contemporary international case studies and examples throughout each chapter bridge theory with practical application and systematically document the patterns of activities that enable success. This textbook is a vital resource for postgraduate and undergraduate students of digital business, innovation and transformation. By showing how to initiate digital transformation across an organisation, it will prepare business owners, directors and management of small- and medium-sized businesses to take strategic advantage of new and emerging technologies to stay ahead of their competition.

External innovation and the ability to internalise stimulus is a key driver for change and transformation within organisations. The proliferation of consumer digital technologies, connectivity, GPS, cheap mobile devices and increasingly demanding consumers has created the opportunities and rationale for transformation. Competitor analysis is nothing new and has always been an important aspect of conducting business. Learning how to improve by observing the practice of others and avoiding the pitfalls experienced by competitors is as old as business itself. The purpose of conducting a strategic competitor analysis is to internalise the external stimulus that is found in the Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA) world. The need for an organisation to be permeable to external stimulus is an essential prerequisite for successful competitor analysis. The braided river is a thinking device used to describe the VUCA world which is full of competitors in ways that can be meaningful shared with an internal audience.

In order to successfully introduce strategic transformation into an organisation, a structured and systematic approach to organisational change is required. The HINGE planning model for digital transformation is developed from the collective experience obtained through a range of digital transformation projects and decades of working with technology startups and evolving small- and medium-sized enterprises. The advantage of HINGE is that the monolithic problem-solving can be broken down into smaller constituent parts and produce a larger number of HINGE cycles that can be potentially realised in parallel as well as producing more immediate quick wins across the organization. Digital transformation is essentially firstly a people challenge–it requires that people are on board with the need to change. Communicating this need to change will be based around a combination of push and pull factors that are specific to each organization.

This chapter sets out a challenge for managers and entrepreneurs. Undertaking the digital transformation of an organisation personally requires long-term vision, self-awareness and self-reflection. In digital transformation, the preparedness to change, listen, be flexible and generally work differently is expected of everyone. Primal Leadership lays out the central concept of visionary leadership and management. Visionary leaders have the ability to mobilise people towards defined long-term goals using persuasion, charisma and high emotional intelligence. Visionary leaders are able to articulate for any audience the direction of the organisation and motivate and communicate to others why and how this vision can and should be reached. With the goal of strategic digital transformation to become data-driven and people-focused, getting the right people and the people right is essential. Visionary leadership and management is at its most effective when the right people are in place who have the right skills, knowledge and training plans.

This chapter presents a simple model to understand an organisation’s digital maturity. Digital maturity has been assigned a variety of meanings and is represented in many different ways. This is particularly true of the consulting firms such as McKinsey, Deloitte and Gartner who all offer varying digital business maturity models. The potential for confusion is enormous. The Digital Business Maturity Model is primarily intended to be used as a quick gauge of the current state of technology adoption and transformation within an organisation. At first glance, the model is simple, but despite this simplicity it provides a useful starting point from which to develop complex levels of strategic thinking and planning. A systems-oriented approach to strategic digital transformation points to the need for all functions of an organisation to be operating symbiotically to reach higher shared levels of maturity.

As unemployment figures rise in the developed world, questions regarding the meaning of “labor” and the intrinsic ”value” of work re-emerge. This paper examines labor practices in virtual game worlds to extend existing theoretical explorations regarding concepts of labor and work in the information systems field. The cases explored in this study observe the labor processes associated with two virtual game worlds. We explore whether labor processes are being replicated in virtual environments and, if so, whether “conventional” hegemonies identified by Marxist literature regarding labor are also found in these virtual worlds. This paper contributes to critical information systems research by exploring emancipatory claims regarding labor practices in ICT-enabled work. We present the findings from empirical studies of the Puzzle Pirates and Farmville virtual worlds where we examine the forms of labor undertaken online and their significance in the construction of hegemonic power relationships. The research utilizes a structured ethnographic-style methodology to explore daily working life found in these game environments. This paper contributes to critical information systems research by testing the robustness of existing theories of labor process in the problematic and expansive space of virtual worlds.

Futures research has lived up to Wells’ prediction by becoming a legitimate scholarly discipline. In this paper, we explore the role of science fiction in creating prototypes of imagined and better futures evident in these narratives even when they are distinct from the futures they predict. We explore the contributions and warnings of utopian and dystopian stories to the development and the specific realisation of future business visions. By drawing on Mannermaa's framework, a selection of science fiction writings, and the description of sources for innovations, we are able to examine the impact of prototyping on business management. Within this paper we describe scenarios as the mechanisms that test strategic direction while the prototype offers a mechanism for the analysis of business vision. We explore the synergy that exists between creative fiction authors and futurologists, discussing the predictive elements and the source of inspirations for innovators. We argue that while business futurologists appear to offer pedestrian “predictions” and future models, the most impact is achieved with views of the future that are presented as prototypical stories; stories that plant a seed that germinates and comes to fruition in a more distant future.