Digital Transformation: Drivers, Managerial Actions and Means of Value Creation

The introduction of digital technologies such as mobility solutions, internet-of-things (IoT), cloud storage and big data has provided numerous opportunities for firms to arrive at novel customer value propositions (CVP) and new digital means by which CVP could be built and delivered. The usage of digital technologies imposes challenges to firms in the form of handling huge volumes of data, and benefits in the form of new opportunities for novel value creation. An organization that uses digital technologies essentially employs digital transformation (DT) to effect novel value propositions, implement innovative processes for building CVP and deliver value to end customers. The study on DT has gained importance in the recent past, especially in the areas of how a firm could implement DT, when does a firm need to implement DT, and how a firm could create novel value proposition based on data thus enabling the firm to build competitive advantage. The objective of this research is to arrive at inferences on aspects of Digital Transformation such as 'why firms engage in Digital Transformation', 'how do they restructure to implement Digital Transformation', and 'how do they build digital value proposition as part of Digital Transformation'. This research on digital transformation (DT) comprises of three inter-connected and independent studies. The objective of the first study is to arrive at inferences on how an emerging market organization embraces DT based on available opportunities and threats that are both internal and external to the firm. The objective of the second study is to infer on how organizations go through DT, by implementing process adjustments on both internal and external fronts. The objective of the third study is to identify the right architecture to support data-enabled value creation as part of digital transformation. The proposed study is narrowed down to three independent empirical researches. All the three studies are explorative in nature, inter-connected, mutually exclusive, and collectively exhaustive. For the first two studies, the data collection is done through interviews with founders and leaders in 14 technology-intensive firms in variety of industries. For the first two studies, we used inductive thematic analysis. The third part is qualitative and explorative in nature, implemented through three interviews with subject matter experts handling data-deluge and novel value creation as part of implementing DT.