WHY IT MATTERS: Digital Transformation

Every Western institution was unprepared for the coronavirus pandemic, despite many prior warnings. This monumental failure of institutional effectiveness will reverberate for the rest of the decade, but it's not too early to ask why, and what we need to do about it... Our nation and our civilization were built on production, on building. We built roads and trains, farms and factories, then the computer, the microchip, the smartphone, and uncounted thousands of other things that we now take for granted, that are all around us, that define our lives and provide for our well-being. There is only one way to create the future we want for our own children and grandchildren, and that's to build.

To support this process we have developed a comprehensive framework that combines four clusters of enablers for digital transformation (shown in the figure below). The “4E-Framework” gives companies a structured approach to analyze and build capabilities that position their business in a rapidly changing commercial environment. In practice, this framework enables companies to focus activities and resources on key strategic areas, and to measure the results.

Think of the trends we’ve seen emerge in recent years:

• Sensors and actuators, including implantables and wearables, that let us capture more data and impressions from more objects in more places, and that affect the environment around them.
• Ubiquitous computing and hyperconnectivity, which exponentially increase the flow of data between people and devices and among devices themselves.
• Nanotechnology and nanomaterials, which let us build ever more complex devices at microscopic scale.
• Artificial intelligence, in which algorithms become increasingly capable of making decisions based on past performance and desired results.
• Vision as an interface to participate in and control augmented and virtual reality
• Blockchain technology, which makes all kinds of digital transactions secure, verifiable, and potentially automatic.