Digital strategies not enough to win in marketplace, says expert

Two world-renowned strategists, Paul Leinwand and Matt Mani, have emphasised that digital strategies alone are not enough to win in the marketplace as companies have to reimagine the compelling value they will offer and how they will create it differently.

The duo stated this at a workshop hosted by Strategy and PwC’s strategy consulting business leaders in West Africa.
At the workshop, which was based on the book, ‘Beyond Digital’, written by Paul Leinwand and Matt Mani, experts said digital transformation is critical but winning in today’s world requires more than digitisation.

According to the authors, the need to reimagine the way companies uniquely offer their products and services in addition to digital initiatives has become critical for success in the marketplace. They argued that the nature of competitive advantage has shifted and that being digital is not enough

Mani said their findings in the book are based on three years of research with 12 companies that have executed business-wide transformation strategies. The companies include, Adobe, Citigroup, Cleveland Clinic, Eli Lilly, Hitachi, Honeywell, Inditex and Komatsu. Others are: Microsoft, Philips, STC Pay and Titan.

Through in-depth interviews with leaders who led these transformations, they were able to identify seven leadership imperatives that are essential for companies to transform their organisations and shape the future.

Mani added that business leaders need to be both strategists and executors, tech-savvy and deeply human, good at forming coalitions and making compromises while being guided by their integrity.

Country Senior Partner for PwC Nigeria and Regional Senior Partner for West Africa, Uyi Akpata, noted that the event was also an opportunity to introduce the Strategy, PwC’s global strategy consulting business in West Africa.

Akpata said: “Strategy is the only at-scale strategy business inside a professional services network and with this new practice, we can combine our strategic foresight with the experience of frontline teams across PwC, to transform perspective into pragmatism, and ambition into action thus helping you drive those results that ensure sustainable outcomes.”