“Never is going to be as calm as now” – How do large Finnish organizations adapt their digital strategies to the fast-changing business environment?
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School of Business |
Master's thesis
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Date
2018
Department
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Mcode
Degree programme
Strategy
Language
en
Pages
130
Series
Abstract
There are more developments and disruptions in technology and business models than ever before. To react to and benefit from these changes, organizations have created digital strategies. However, solely implementing a long-term digital strategy can cause falling behind in technology and competition if the organization is not able to react to the fast changes in business environment. The purpose of this thesis is to study how large organizations adapt their digital strategies in order to simultaneously implement long-term digital strategy and react fast to the changes in business environment. The previous research of digital strategy’s adaptation to the fast changes in business environment and capabilities it requires from organizations is still scarce. This thesis is conducted as a multiple case study of 11 large Finnish organizations which have shown interest towards digitalization. One person participating to digital strategy or strategy work was interviewed from each organization meaning in total 11 semi-structured interviews. The data was analyzed with Gioia method to bring rigor to the data analysis and to look for the themes in data with a consistent way. Findings of the study present that organizations adapt to the changes in environment by adapting their digital strategies and by following changes in environment, addressing new opportunities, and transforming the organization in ways they did not use with traditional business. This thesis contributes to the previous research by extending the literature of digital strategy and looking dynamic capabilities theory from the perspective of digital strategy. This study suggests that digital strategy develops through three steps: first digitalization is mentioned in strategy, secondly organizations have a digital strategy or transformation program, and finally digitalization is embedded to business strategy. To follow changes effectively, organizations do it as a part of their strategy processes but also use external partners, internal idea collection processes, or specified teams to support following changes. Addressing new opportunities differ from traditional product development and is aimed to be faster and more agile. Opportunities are addressed through three steps which include planning the pilot, implementing it, and finally ending or scaling it to a product. To implement the pilots, organizations engage customers and combine capabilities relating to business, IT and software development, and new knowledge. To support adaptation to the changes in environment, organizations have made changes to their structures, built new digital competences, used centralized funding, and tried to transform their organizational cultures. Furthermore, the findings suggest that organizations feel that the changes in business environment are becoming faster and organizations have the need for dynamic capabilities.Description
Thesis advisor
Välikangas, LiisaKeywords
adapting to changes in business environment, digital strategy, digital transformation, dynamic capabilities, strategic management