Organizing for Digital Transformation

Overview

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Digital transformation is not just about technology: it is about people, processes, and structures that allow organizations to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world. Even with strong data and advanced analytics, many firms struggle to capture real value because they are not organized to make the most of their investments. In this course, you’ll explore the organizational side of digital transformation: how to align teams, metrics, and governance with technology adoption. You’ll see why transformation efforts often fall short, study real-world examples from leading firms, and practice making the case for infrastructure and AI investments to executive stakeholders. This course builds on the fundamentals of digital transformation and the manager’s role in data analytics by moving into the organizational capabilities required for success. You will reflect on your own organizational context, analyze global case studies, and produce actionable plans for structuring digital transformation in practice.

Syllabus

Course Orientation
Organizing for Digital Innovation

Digital innovation is more than adopting new technologies. It requires organizing your business models, operating models, and governance structures to capture value from those technologies. Many firms invest heavily in analytics and AI, only to see limited results because they lack the organizational alignment to translate investment into impact. In this unit, you’ll examine why digital transformation frequently fails to meet expectations, study how leading firms are adopting new technologies, and explore frameworks for organizing around business and operating models. You’ll also practice explaining the value of infrastructure or AI investments to executive decision-makers, building your ability to connect technology to strategy.

Transformation and Metrics

You and your organization are poised to make great strides in using data to drive transformation. But asking the right questions is only the beginning. The real challenge is structuring your organization to collect the right data at the right time, with the right team. In this unit, you’ll examine how firms approach transformation across stages, what metrics guide them, and how business models and product teams evolve along the way. Through a case interview with Bob Darin of Blue Health Intelligence, you’ll learn how ecosystems and platforms shape organizational choices and what tradeoffs leaders must make. You’ll then analyze how firms organize for data, align product capabilities, and structure teams to meet user and market demands. Finally, you’ll apply these insights in your own milestone assignment by identifying and analyzing a dataset relevant to your organization’s transformation journey.

Operating Models to Facilitate Transformation

Even the best planned digital transformations face challenges when organizations try to integrate new technologies into real-world structures. Firms must balance the promise of AI with the realities of organizational design, team capabilities, and investment trade-offs. Metrics help track progress, but they can also complicate decision-making when costs are high and outcomes uncertain.