Beyond Digital, Firms Need To Reinvent Strategies – Analysts

In a fast-changing world, the need to reimagine the way companies offer their products and services in a unique manner in addition to digital initiatives have become critical for their success in the marketplace.

This was stressed at the workshop hosted by Strategy& PwC’s global strategy consulting business for business leaders in West Africa. The workshop, which was based on the book Beyond Digital, written by Paul Leinwand and Matt Mani, two world-renowned strategists who are also Strategy & Partners opines that while digital transformation is critical, winning in today’s world requires more than digitisation.

According to the authors, digital initiatives alone are not enough to win in the marketplace as companies have to reimagine the compelling value they will offer and how they will create it in a differentiating way.

In his lead presentation at the event Matt Mani one of the co-authors noted that their findings in the book are based on three years of research with 12 companies that have executed business-wide transformation strategies:  Adobe, Citigroup, Cleveland Clinic, Eli Lilly, Hitachi, Honeywell, Inditex, Komatsu, Microsoft, Philips, STC Pay and Titan. Through in-depth interviews with the leaders who led these transformations, they were able to identify seven leadership imperatives that are essential for companies to transform their organisations and shape the future.

The imperatives he said include “reimagining your company’s place in the world, embracing and creating value via ecosystems, building a system of privileged insights with your customers and making your organization outcome-oriented.”

He also listed inverting the focus of the leadership team, reinventing the social contract with people and disrupting  leadership approach. “One of the things that stood out in our research is how many leaders emphasized that they themselves had to transform at least as much as their companies did.

“Today’s business leaders need to be both strategists and executors; tech-savvy and deeply human; good at forming coalitions and making compromises, all while being guided by their integrity.” Mani stated.

Country Senior Partner for PwC Nigeria and Regional Senior Partner for West Africa, Uyi Akpata, in his welcome remark, noted that the event was also an opportunity to introduce the Strategy&, PwC’s global strategy consulting business in West AAfria.

Akpata said “Strategy and is the only at-scale strategy business inside a professional services network and with this new practice, we are able to combine our strategic foresight with the experience of frontline teams across PwC, to transform perspective into pragmatism, and ambition into action thus helping you drive those results that ensure sustainable outcomes.