Digital transformation presents significant challenges for large Danish enterprises. While customer experience is the top priority, leadership and capabilities for digital transformation are lacking. Companies are experimenting with agile practices but still rely on traditional ways of working. To succeed, companies need uncompromising executive sponsorship, a balance of centralized vision and decentralized execution, and the ability to attract and retain new competencies through independent units. Open collaboration is also important to access new domains and continuous challenges.

1. 1
Digital
Transformation
Report
Creating a Digital-First Business
How the largest Danish enterprises address Digital Transformation

2. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
Thomas Holm Møller
• Co-founder of QVARTZ II 2002
• Senior Advisor on Digital Transformation
250 19
Employees Nationalities
3
Offices
(DK, SE, NO)
• Top-tier management consulting
• Partnership with Microsoft
Connecting businesses with
the global crowd.
Tech
Human
Business
Strategic # Explorative
Disciplined # Creative
Logical # Inventive
“Business ideation”

3. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
Leading a digital transformation in 2016
- not unlike riding a snowmobile in a snowstorm
Full speed!Stay close!

4. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
Why a(nother) digital transformation study?
What's out there:
 Importance of digital
 IT and CIO perspectives
 Highly quantitative
Why
What
How
Digital transformation
- November 29
Report
Roundtable
What's (not) out there:
• Business perspective
• Operational challenges
• Recipe for success

5. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015

6. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
6 of 10 largest DK companies
Medtech, pharma &
food ingredients
Industry &
manufacturing
Telco & media
Services
Finance
Transport
& energy
Consumer
products
Seven major industries
~80% of OMX C20 revenue18/20 report to ExCo
2 (top management)
6 (ExCO)
12
(CEO)
Corp.
strategy
BD /
M&A
Commercial Digital
function
Innovation
unit
IT
Majority from Strategy & BD

7. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
Engage your
customers
Empower your
employees
Transform your
products
Optimize your
operations
What?

8. 8
Engage your
customers
Empower your
employees
It's (almost) all about the customers…
‘When it comes
down to
prioritization, it’s all
about the customer
experience.
If we don’t get the
customer experience
right, everything else
is irrelevant’
Share of companies that prioritize digital-enabled initiatives for
each of the four purposes to a 'high degree or 'very high degree'
Transform your
products
Optimize your
operations

9. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
How?
Digital
Leadership
Functional
Clarity
Future
Way-of-working
New
Competencies
Open
Collaboration
Two-Speed
Technology
Adaptive
Governance

10. 10
Leadership
Technology
Highest importance …!
Highest performance …!
1

11. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
Executive sponsorship and digital leadership is most important
- but apparently no easy task
Digital
Leadership
Recipe for success
• Uncompromised executive sponsorship
• Leaders that combine industry and hands-on digital experience
• Acceptance of personal risks (sacrifice near-term financial goals)
ExecutiveSponsorship
Digital Leadership
"A dedicated owner who takes
personal responsibility of the
agenda is the first step…"

12. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
Resources deployed close to customers for speed and agility
- with a coherent agenda articulated from the Centre
Functional
Clarity
Recipe for success
• Clear definition of digital transformation execution setup
• Balanced center and local (coherent vision, local execution)
• Maneuverability for uncertainty
"It swings like a pendulum …
from centralized, to
decentralized, to centralized…" CoherenceSpeed

13. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
Significant experimentation with start-up practices but the corporate
norm is still ‘business as usual’
Future
Way-of-Working
"I would not say we have
mastered ‘failing fast’, but we
are getting there…"
Recipe for success
• Agile approaches (sprints, MVP, build-measure-learn, etc.)
• Cross-functional teams with an exploratory mindset
• Seeking of short-term results to gauge potential of each initiative
Scale with confidenceStart-up mindset

14. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
New capabilities are scarce and difficult to attract
- but even more difficult to nurture and retain
New
competencies
Recipe for success
• Appreciated value of 'alternative' backgrounds
(anthropology, design, data science, etc.)
• Recruitment after real digital experience
• Environments to attract, nurture, build talent (independent units)
"We should measure ourselves
on how many people we have
from eBay and Amazon…" Attract RetainIdentify

15. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
Clear need for an agile governance model, but tendency to fall back when
(digital) investments are significant
Adaptive
Governance
Recipe for success
• Setup so right people have power to get things done (speed)
• Alternative metrics (e.g. progress, customer activity)
• Buy in from management even when times are tough
Foresight&facts
Ambiguity & risk
"We try to work in a start-up way, but
governance has a tendency to push us
back to our regular processes"

16. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
Corporations are good at balancing predictability and exploration via
multiple IT modes, but struggle with the integration
Two-speed
Technology
Recipe for success
• Clear separation of exploratory and predictive IT development
• Close collaboration between developers and business functions
• Agility, speed and core business focus through external partners
"Running two-speed IT gives us
agility and works great for
initiatives at a certain size.…"
Full-stack
Multi-
speed
Single
speed
FlexibleInhouse

17. MerialGCDDigitalExperience2015
Emerging tendency to increase inspiration, strengthen delivery, and
access new domains via open and collaborative eco-systems
Open
Collaboration
Recipe for success
• Getting engaged to seek value in difficult to reach domains
• Focus in getting things done irrespective of in-house or partners
• Open mindset to secure continuous challenging
"We have engaged design institutes,
academia, customers, digital natives,
entrepreneurs, etc. to challenge our
industry, products, etc."
Inspiration from
outside vendors
Value creating
partnerships
Multiple unexpected
collaborations

18. 18
“Logic will get you from A to B.
Imagination will take you everywhere”
- Albert Einstein

19. 19
Stay tuned
Thank you!