Digital initiatives alone are not enough to win in the marketplace today. Companies need to reimagine the compelling value they will offer and how they will create it in a differentiating way.
This was the view of the keynote presentation at a workshop hosted by Strategy& PwC’s global strategy consulting business for business leaders in West Africa.
The workshop, which was based on the book Beyond Digital, written by Paul Leinwand and Matt Mani, two world-renowned strategists who are also Strategy& Partners opines that while digital transformation is critical, winning in today’s world requires more than digitization. It requires understanding that the nature of competitive advantage has shifted and that being digital is not enough.
In his lead presentation at the event Matt Mani one of the co-authors noted that their findings in the book are based on three years of research with 12 companies that have executed business-wide transformation strategies: Adobe, Citigroup, Cleveland Clinic, Eli Lilly, Hitachi, Honeywell, Inditex, Komatsu, Microsoft, Philips, STC Pay and Titan.
Through in-depth interviews with the 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.
Those imperatives include:
- Reimagine your company’s place in the world
- Embrace and create value via ecosystems
- Build a system of privileged insights with your customers
- Make your organization outcome-oriented
- Invert the focus of your leadership team
- Reinvent the social contract with your people
- Disrupt your own leadership approach
Matt Mani noted: “One of the things that stood out in our research is how many leaders emphasized that they themselves had to transform at least as much as their companies did. Today’s business leaders need to be both strategists and executors; tech-savvy and deeply human; good at forming coalitions and making compromises, all while being guided by their integrity.”
The session featured a panel discussion with Abubakar Sulieman, MD/CEO of Sterling Bank, Oluwafemi Lawal, Head of Digital Transformation at NLNG, and Vish Ashiagbor, Country Senior Partner for PwC Ghana and the firm’s Advisory Leader for West Africa with the business leaders sharing from their experience and success stories to reiterate that to make the best use of innovations, today’s companies must reimagine who they are, open new pathways to value creation, and transform their business.
Earlier in his welcome remark, Uyi Akpata, Country Senior Partner for PwC Nigeria and Regional Senior Partner for West Africa noted that the event was also an opportunity to introduce the Strategy&, PwC’s global strategy consulting business in West Africa
Uyi Akpata said: “Strategy& is the only at-scale strategy business inside a professional services network and with this new practice, we are able to 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.”
Also speaking at the session and providing more information about Strategy& were Dr Peter Gassmann, Strategy& Global Leader and Pieter Crafford, the Africa Strategy& lead as well as Olusegun Zaccheaus, Partner and Lead for Strategy& West Africa.
The session was attended by business leaders across sectors including financial services, oil and gas, manufacturing, telecommunication, technology, and public sector.
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