The Digital Transformer's Dilemma

Bring your company into the digital era without compromising your core business

In The Digital Transformer's Dilemma: How to Energize Your Core Business While Building Disruptive Products and Services, the authors show companies how to go digital while also advancing their core business. The book emphasizes how to strike a difficult balance between establishing a new (digital) business and re-vitalizing - and digitizing - the legacy business.

The core of the book is focused on the actual implementation of the digital transformation across both businesses, providing concrete tips, tricks, tools and action plans across six key dimensions:

• Crafting a flexible organization
• Using technology as a driver
• Designing the necessary processes
• Building transformational leaders
• 'Right-skilling' the workforce of the future
• Galvanizing cultural change

The Digital Transformer's Dilemma is a very visual  book, filled with dozens of engaging illustrations that bring the contained concepts to life on the page.

Based on 100+ interviews with senior executives at leading companies (such as Nestlé, Novartis, Volkswagen, BNP Paribas, BASF and Michelin) and smaller hidden champions, numerous illuminating case studies, and the authors' own experience from working in international management consulting and years of academic experience, the book highlights the fundamental principles required for executives and businesspeople to transform legacy organizations into digitally empowered companies.

KAROLIN FRANKENBERGER is a Full Professor and Director at the Institute of Management and Strategy at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, where she is also the Academic Director of the Executive MBA. Karolin is an internationally renowned keynote speaker and supports company leaders in their strategy and innovation challenges. Her last book The Business Model Navigator was an international best-seller and was translated into 12 languages.

HANNAH MAYER is a PhD Fellow at the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard, where she does research on AI-powered business models, digital transformation and digital platforms. Prior to her academic career, Hannah was a consultant at an international management consultancy, focusing on digital transformation projects, and spent two years at Google as a Digital Strategist.

ANDREAS REITER is PhD student at the University of St. Gallen, specializing in digital transformation and platform ecosystems. Prior to his doctoral studies, Andreas was a consultant a leading management consulting firm, where he focused on digital transformation projects and the set-up of digital business models.

MARKUS SCHMIDT is the CEO and founder of QSID Digital Advisory, a consulting boutique dedicated to supporting companies in their strategy, leadership and digital transformation challenges. This role was preceded by long-time experience leading globalization and digital transformation at Valeo and Bosch. He serves as an independent board member in different companies and as a lecturer at multiple universities.