Components of a digital transformation strategy : a South African perspective

Abstract

Most organisations have begun to take the phenomenon of digital transformation very seriously and in response, they have adopted a digital transformation strategy (DTS) to guide them on the journey to being digitally transformed. Despite the impetus to adopt a DTS, most organisations lack the understanding of what a DTS entails and the components of such a strategy. In an effort to bring better understanding on the components of a DTS, this study adopted a qualitative research approach and collected research data using an Internet-mediated questionnaire. Our research findings revealed that most organisations have recently adopted a DTS within the last 10 years with the exception of a few. Furthermore, our research findings reveal that a DTS must incorporate the following components, digitisation of the customer experience, digitisation of products and services, digitisation employee ways of working and digitisation of business processes. Our findings also revealed that a DTS leverages digital technologies enabling the organisation to compete, innovate, grow and achieve its business strategy. These results have implications for academics; our study adds to the digital transformation body of knowledge and specifically the components of a DTS. We also propose a definition of a DTS based on our findings of DTS components. For practitioners, managers formulating and refining their DTS can use the DTS components as a benchmark of what to incorporate in their DTS.