Business Transformation Requires Transformational Leaders

To create an organization that can effectively respond to heightened customer centricity and product customization, you need effective and coordinated product development teams. To respond to customer needs quickly, teams need to be autonomous, empowered, self-organizing, and cross-functional. They must take high-level direction from management and then, through intense collaboration, complete work more quickly than their predecessors. In this Advisor, we share our thoughts on putting up guardrails for your teams.

Cybersecurity urgently needs attention from businesses and government, according to Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Paul Clermont. He highlights how several colliding trends — complexity, AI, and inter-connectedness — are compounding long-standing risks. Clermont discusses the tactics necessary to address them but cautions that “compounding the difficulty of these tasks is the need to be able to execute algorithms and procedures in nanoseconds — a tall order that should inspire a bit of conservatism about how much functionality and connectivity we might want versus what we truly need.”

According to Cutter Consortium Senior Consultant Whynde Kuehn, “Amid a backdrop of digital trans­formation and a continually shifting landscape of change, business architecture is gaining momentum and relevance.” In her article, she discusses the areas in which business architecture will continue to play a key role and illustrates how three specific scenarios will lead the way to increased relevance and leadership. Kuehn lays out what this might mean to you, along with the steps you need to take to realize these benefits.

Steve Andriole discusses the lack of technology regulatory action by the US government. He opens with the assertion that “the proliferation of misinformation on social media, drones flying in protected airspace, and the exploding personal surveillance of Americans are but three examples of the crying need for regulatory action.” Andriole details 10 technology areas in need of attention, and the associated guidelines, policies, and regulations that would go a long way in keeping technology misuse in check.

In this Executive Update we summarize our view of the future transportation and logistics market and outline possible paths forward for incumbents. Our analysis is applicable to industries outside the transportation and logistics market as well.

Cutter Consortium Fellow Stijn Viaene admits that embarking on a digital transformation isn't easy — but there are five keys to success. He breaks down these tips, distilled from his research, via a plan of action that can help organizations on the road to digital transformation.

How should project teams corral the natural but emotional forces exerting pressure on project decision making and processes?

Transformation of a company and managing through change are inherently difficult. The inclusion of a digital component in this transformation effort makes the work that much more challenging, even for the sharpest and most visionary of executives. Companies undertaking digital transformation, in our opinion and based on our experience, face four major challenges that we believe design thinking tools can help overcome. In this Advisor, we explore two of these challenges and explain how design thinking can provide solutions.