Author
Christian Matt
Other affiliations: Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Bio: Christian Matt is an academic researcher from University of Bern. The author has contributed to research in topics: Digital transformation & Supply chain. The author has an hindex of 16, co-authored 78 publications receiving 2573 citations. Previous affiliations of Christian Matt include Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
Papers
More filters
••
04 Aug 2015TL;DR: An important approach is to formulate a digital transformation strategy that serves as a central concept to integrate the entire coordination, prioritization, and implementation of digital transformations within a firm.
Abstract: In recent years, firms in almost all industries have conducted a number of initiatives to explore new digital technologies and to exploit their benefits. This frequently involves transformations of key business operations and affects products and processes, as well as organizational structures and management concepts. Companies need to establish management practices to govern these complex transformations. An important approach is to formulate a digital transformation strategy that serves as a central concept to integrate the entire coordination, prioritization, and implementation of digital transformations within a firm. The exploitation and integration of digital technologies often affect large parts of companies and even go beyond their borders, by impacting products, business processes, sales channels, and supply chains. Potential benefits of digitization are manifold and include increases in sales or productivity, innovations in value creation, as well as novel forms of interaction with customers, among others. As a result, entire business models can be reshaped or replaced (Downes and Nunes 2013). Owing to this wide scope and the far-reaching consequences, digital transformation strategies seek to coordinate and prioritize the many independent threads of digital transformation. To account for their company-spanning characteristics, digital transformation strategies cut across other business strategies and should be aligned with them (Fig. 1). While there are various concepts of IT strategies (Teubner 2013), these mostly define the current and the future operational activities, the necessary application systems and infrastructures, and the adequate organizational and financial framework for providing IT to carry out business operations within a company. Hence, IT strategies usually focus on the management of the IT infrastructure within a firm, with rather limited impact on driving innovations in business development. To some degree, this restricts the product-centric and customer-centric opportunities that arise from new digital technologies, which often cross firms’ borders. Further, IT strategies present systemcentric road maps to the future uses of technologies in a firm, but they do not necessarily account for the transformation of products, processes, and structural aspects that go along with the integration of technologies. Digital transformation strategies take on a different perspective and pursue different goals. Coming from a business-centric perspective, these strategies focus on the transformation of products, processes, and organizational aspects owing to new technologies. Their scope is more broadly designed and explicitly includes digital activities at the interface with or fully on the side of customers, such as Accepted after one revision by Prof. Dr. Sinz.
1,258 citations
••
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe how three German media companies successfully approached digital transformation and provide a list of 11 strategic questions and possible answers managers can use as guidelines when formulating a digital transformation strategy.
Abstract: CIOs and other senior executives face the challenge of how to handle the opportunities and risks of digital transformation. To help managers address this challenge more systematically, we describe how three German media companies successfully approached digital transformation. Based on their experiences, we provide a list of 11 strategic questions and possible answers managers can use as guidelines when formulating a digital transformation strategy.
740 citations
•
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors propose a digital transformation strategy that serves as a central concept to integrate the entire coordination, prioritization, and implementation of digital transformations within a firm, which can be used to coordinate and prioritize the many independent threads of digital transformation.
Abstract: In recent years, firms in almost all industries have conducted a number of initiatives to explore new digital technologies and to exploit their benefits. This frequently involves transformations of key business operations and affects products and processes, as well as organizational structures and management concepts. Companies need to establish management practices to govern these complex transformations. An important approach is to formulate a digital transformation strategy that serves as a central concept to integrate the entire coordination, prioritization, and implementation of digital transformations within a firm. The exploitation and integration of digital technologies often affect large parts of companies and even go beyond their borders, by impacting products, business processes, sales channels, and supply chains. Potential benefits of digitization are manifold and include increases in sales or productivity, innovations in value creation, as well as novel forms of interaction with customers, among others. As a result, entire business models can be reshaped or replaced (Downes and Nunes 2013). Owing to this wide scope and the far-reaching consequences, digital transformation strategies seek to coordinate and prioritize the many independent threads of digital transformation. To account for their company-spanning characteristics, digital transformation strategies cut across other business strategies and should be aligned with them (Fig. 1). While there are various concepts of IT strategies (Teubner 2013), these mostly define the current and the future operational activities, the necessary application systems and infrastructures, and the adequate organizational and financial framework for providing IT to carry out business operations within a company. Hence, IT strategies usually focus on the management of the IT infrastructure within a firm, with rather limited impact on driving innovations in business development. To some degree, this restricts the product-centric and customer-centric opportunities that arise from new digital technologies, which often cross firms’ borders. Further, IT strategies present systemcentric road maps to the future uses of technologies in a firm, but they do not necessarily account for the transformation of products, processes, and structural aspects that go along with the integration of technologies. Digital transformation strategies take on a different perspective and pursue different goals. Coming from a business-centric perspective, these strategies focus on the transformation of products, processes, and organizational aspects owing to new technologies. Their scope is more broadly designed and explicitly includes digital activities at the interface with or fully on the side of customers, such as Accepted after one revision by Prof. Dr. Sinz.
643 citations
••
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: The convergence of the so-called SMAC technologies – social, mobile, analytics, and cloud computing – has led to an unprecedented wave of digitalization that is currently fueling innovation in business and society.
Abstract: The convergence of the so-called SMAC technologies – social, mobile, analytics, and cloud computing – has led to an unprecedented wave of digitalization that is currently fueling innovation in business and society. As digitalization is embracing all aspects of our private and professional lives, it is becoming a priority for managers and policymakers, and has made it into the headlines of newspapers, magazines, and practitioner conferences. This wave of digitalization is creating opportunities for the BISE community to engage in innovative research activities and to increase the discipline’s visibility. However, since BISE researchers have investigated the increasing exploitation and integration of digital technologies over several decades, they also naturally react with ambivalence when others claim that going digital is a new phenomenon.
464 citations
••
TL;DR: In mature online markets like the United States, online shopping appears to be treated as just another form of shopping, but in China, if an online vendor can establish a reputation for quality, consumers appear to treat those merchants much as Americans do their own favorite online vendors, despite problems with Chinese shopping more generally.
Abstract: Trust underlies much of the online shopping behavior. We compare trust in online shopping in four countries: (1) the United States, a mature online market; (2) Germany; (3) China, the fastest growi...
62 citations
Cited by
More filters
•
TL;DR: In this article, the authors introduce the concept of ''search'' where a buyer wanting to get a better price, is forced to question sellers, and deal with various aspects of finding the necessary information.
Abstract: The author systematically examines one of the important issues of information — establishing the market price. He introduces the concept of «search» — where a buyer wanting to get a better price, is forced to question sellers. The article deals with various aspects of finding the necessary information.
3,790 citations
•
3,713 citations