An Introduction to Digital Transformation

To better understand today’s digital age, it’s important to look back at the Industrial Revolution. As Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backward.” Just as the steam engine and other machines transformed the 18th-century economy, digital technologies are changing our world economy, business practices, customer expectations, and societal norms—and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. And while it’s impossible to predict the exact changes that lie ahead, it’s possible to predict who will succeed: agile organizations who are able to quickly take advantage of new opportunities by applying digital technologies.

Learning objectives:

• Explain the parallels between the industrial revolution and the digital revolution
• Define digital transformation
• Describe how digital is changing the operation of businesses, affecting all business sectors, and is making organizations flatter