This summary is based on the Digital Organization course, taught by Professor Alexander Naessens.
The document contains detailed information from the slides (black) and additional notes (blue). Guest lectures are not included in this summary.
Digital organization = implements information systems to realize its strategic objectives in order
to achieve a competitive advantage and create stakeholder value
Information technologies (this will we discuss the next couple of weeks)
® Enterprise Applications (ERP, CRM, SCM)
® E-commerce and M-commerce
® Knowledge Management Systems (KMS)
® Emerging digital solutions (Artificial Intelligence, Cloud, Augmented and Virtual
Reality)
® Business Intelligence and Analytics
® Collaboration
® Cybersecurity
® …
Implementing technology is more than just implementing software
You can invest a million euros in technology, but if nobody uses it in your organization, it’s just
money that you throw away
® Happens a lot!
® People prefer to excel over expensive complicated systems
The availability of information technology does not guarantee the (correct) usage of this
technology.
Building digital organizations requires more than the mere implementation of information
technology.
Technology is only one piece of the puzzle
® Digitizing organizations is an architectural exercise with following building blocks:
§ Technology
§ Organization
§ Organize to make this building come to reality
§ Security, marketing, …
§ Management
§ Have a plan and planning
® Implementing information systems and technology alone does not deliver a competitive
advantage
§ Think about people who will use this technology, do they have the right skills,
how can we help them, give them a plan on what to do first and next, …
§ We need a plan!
Digital organization = implements information systems to realize its strategic objectives in order
to achieve a competitive advantage and create stakeholder value
You implement information systems because you want something in return…
Technology helps you achieve your strategy as your organization
1
,Why? Because you want to be better than your concurrent
® You want to be relevant now and, in the future
® Want to make money and profit
® Main goal: contribute to strategy of organization
Companies have diYerent strategies
Strategies for a competitive advantage
® Lowest cost
§ Companies try to have the lowest cost, then you can have products with low
prices, and then you hope that because you have the lowest price, all consumers
come to you instead of the competition.
§ Colruyt
§ Ryanair
§ Invest in technology that helps them become low cost
§ They invested in an application
§ You can do everything on the app, change your details and find all the info
§ Not have an app? People would call Ryanair and Ryanair would need a lot
of people to always stand by
§ By having an app, they need to have less people, have a lower cost and
can oYer low prices
® DiYerentiated product
§ Built a profit that is diYerent from the others, more innovative, better quality, …
§ Tesla
§ One big screen on which you can do a lot (apps) and all info can be found
§ DiYerentiate yourself from other car companies
§ Espresso, Apple, … (big brands that you know that have good products)
® Market niche
§ Small group of consumers in the market with particular needs. Built a product or
service that really dives in those needs, to make sure that everybody in that small
group will by our product and will we willing to pay a lot
§ Drauzz
§ Targets people that want to pay more for more eco-friendly product
§ Invest a lot of social media to reach this target market
§ Make sure everybody knows them and their product
® Customer and supplier intimacy
§ Built a relationship with our customers, tie customers really close to us
§ Focus on customer satisfaction
§ Netflix
§ Wants to know you as a customer
§ Collects lot of data: when do you stop watching, how long do you watch,
what do you watch, …
§ personalize your page
§ Give you the feeling that they know who you are and that you
should not leave them
§ Invest a lot in data to give personalized experiences
Every company will invest their money in a diYerent way
Need to know the strategy to know how it would reflect in technology
Totally diYerent reasons for investing in digital organizations
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,Role of information systems
® Supporting the current course
§ How can technology help us achieve this strategy? How can technology help us
make our costs even lower?
® Driver for fundamental change of the current course or the current business model
§ Netflix used to be a DVD rental/sale shop
§ Subscription and then every month you received some DVDs
§ Now oYer their DVDs online
§ Use technology to do it totally diYerent
§ Disrupted its own industry
§ Usually, it are new companies with new ideas that disrupt the market, not
existing ones
® Source of new companies and industries
§ Cambio (car sharing)
§ Internet of things: use products remotely
§ Sensors so that I can see on my phone where there is an available
car, you can reserve it, then drive with it and send an invoice
§ Uber, Donkey, steps, …
§ Disrupted the market
§ Influence on carwash, car dealer, houses (now a lot of houses with big
garages), …
2 roles:
- Support company by succeeding its goal
- Give company a new goal/ strategy
Disruptive impact of new industries and business models
® Banks & bank clerks?
® Translators?
o Now use Deepl, google translate, …
® Cashiers & stores?
o 24/7 shop with no people working in the store
® Truck drivers & driving schools?
o Self driving cars
® Owning a car?
® Professors?
Example: Kodak
® Kodak missed the digital transformation after actually starting it
® What company invented the digital camera? Someone at Kodak
o Kodak found it a stupid idea and decided not to do it
o Other companies did do this
o Beginning Kodak said: we are the best with better quality, better than digital
o But now other companies better and better and kodak is going down
Need to constantly look for how can we do things diYerent and better, and look at other
companies and possible threats
3
, Tripple P
= Triple Bottom Line framework
® goes beyond traditional measures of profit (“bottom line”) and additionally includes
environmental and societal dimensions to measure investment results in a more
comprehensive manner.
Why invest in technology? (profit)
® Support strategy, be better than competition and make money
Profit, planet and people
® How can technology help us become more ecological, how can we use it to better work
environment
® Stake holder value!
Digital organization = implements information systems to realize its strategic objectives in order
to achieve a competitive advantage and create stakeholder value
In today’s fast-paced technological landscape, organizations must continuously monitor
technological innovations and their impact on:
® Own organization
o What are the opportunities in supporting our current strategy or enabling new
strategies?
® Competitors
o How do our competitors adopt these innovations and what risks does this bring
to our organization?
® Customers
o How do customer requirements and behavior evolve? (f.e. availability)
® Society
o What does society expect from technological innovation? (f.e. sustainability)
® Government
o What about evolutions in legislations? (f.e. AI act)
Digital organization = implements information systems to realize its strategic objectives in order
to achieve a competitive advantage and create stakeholder value in a rapidly changing
environment
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