How to organize the Digital Enterprise?

By Edwin Wieringa

What is the essence of a true digital enterprise and what can you do as a company or manager to realize it? Anderson MacGyver’s Digital Enterprise model offers a solution. Edwin Wieringa leads the Organization Guild within the consultancy firm. He explains how his professional scope aligns with the digital ambitions of clients.

The Digital Enterprise model places the organization within the context of the market and business ecosystem, and then focuses on five essential building blocks: a strong customer experience, a robust operational backbone, a flexible digital infrastructure, shared data and digital smartness. In combination, these fundamental components ensure a culture of continuous improvement and agility, allowing the organization not only to respond to change, but also to predict and capitalize on it.

Interrelated challenges

Organizing a digital enterprise focused on business value has three strongly interrelated challenges: executing the strategy; application of technology that meets the needs of consumers, customers and business; and combining exploitation and exploration – or ambidexterity where turnover and innovation go hand in hand. 

A holistic approach, addressing all three challenges, is fundamental to achieving strategic and business goals. To this end, the organization must be aware of the added value within the business context and what needs to be done to achieve digital ambitions. You then determine the direction and roadmap for tech, data and organization. For all this, Anderson MacGyver has a proven collection of methods, techniques and metrics. 

Although continuous attention must be paid to the optimal basis of back end processes and infrastructure, the most benefit can be achieved at the front end: offering the right digital products and services through the desired channels and the associated user experience. Smart application of data is crucial to improve customer processes.

Four levels

Generating the highest business value requires an effectively designed organization. This ideally happens at four levels: digitally driven leadership and competencies, management via a coordinating layer to execution, where multidisciplinary teams deliver what is needed. A control layer verifies whether all this is in line with the principles.

Digitally driven leadership and capabilities are required at all organizational levels. This includes the right working methods, culture and ‘digital appetite’. To build a bridge to the optimal application and organization of technology based on business opportunities and distinctive added value for the customer, organization and ecosystem partners.

In short: the Digital Enterprise model offers a structure to distinguish teams focused on agility from those centered on stability and efficiency. Learn how to transform your organization into a Digital Enterprise. Click here to download the whitepaper and take the first step towards a successful future.