Digital Innovation & Transformation

Welcome. My name is Michael Barrett, and I’m a Professor of Information Systems and Innovation Studies and a Vice Dean at Cambridge Judge Business School. I’ve been researching and consulting on digital innovation and transformation for over 30 years across different industries. And currently, as academic director of Cambridge Digital Innovation, I’ve developed, with a number of colleagues globally, a research programme on the smart hospital of the future. This research explores digital transformation in health care. Technologies such as AI, digital twins, electronic health records, remote technologies, and how they’re transforming care and developing collaborative innovation in health ecosystems across the UK, Europe, the Middle East, and Canada.

A second area of my research is in financial services and professional service firms. Currently, we’re looking at in our research generative AI and digital transformation, and how it’s impacting this sector. I’m currently writing a series of articles as editor-in-chief of Information & Organization on AI and creativity, AI and risk, the way in which technology can increase marginalisation, and develop new digital inequalities. We’re also writing about AI for good. How it can enable collaboration and knowledge sharing for social enterprises, such as Ashoka.

Relatedly, a third area of my research is on mobile money for development with a focus on Africa. And in that research, the question we ask is, how is digital innovation helping the 1.5 billion people that are still excluded from the financial system? How might they be financially included? And also, how can we provide social inclusion with digital technology?

Who is the programme aimed towards? And who can benefit from attending the programme?

The audience we have in mind are mid- to senior-level managers who need a digital strategy to lead their business unit or firm through their ongoing digital transformation journey. We’re also interested in attracting innovators who are charged with leading digital in their organisation and who are developing and implementing creative digital solutions in their organisation and across their business ecosystem. And finally, leaders of business units or those who have general management responsibilities and need to develop their digital literacy and know-how.

What is the programme overview?

Well, in the Digital Innovation and Transformation Programme, we ask, what is driving this latest trend in digital and digital transformation? Is it the digital leaders, such as Apple, Amazon, Alibaba, the arms of this world? Or is it the acceleration brought on by COVID and the constant wave of crises which we’re currently in?

We then explore, what’s distinctive about transformation that is related specifically to digital? How is transformation enabled by innovating through digital technologies? What are the challenges? What are the risks?

Why do surveys constantly say that 70% of digital transformation efforts fail, yet at the same time, we know that leaders are constantly recognising digital as being critical for their future success and even survival? In addressing these issues, we’re going to be drawing upon ongoing research at Cambridge Judge Business School, the wider University of Cambridge, the surrounding Silicon Fen, and globally, with lessons that we know from key companies and organisations that give us the latest insights, ideas, lessons learned, and challenges which will help you accelerate your digital transformation journey.

What is the learning journey?

The course starts by introducing key concepts on digital innovation and transformation and provides a framework for developing your digital transformation strategy by widening your lens of innovation. And then, we dig deep into examining issues of culture and leadership, which are critical in developing behavioural change around digital.

Frameworks will be shared with you on diagnosing culture in a digital world. And leading transformation and becoming a digital Organisation, driving cultural change in a way that’s the right level and approach. We’ll then discuss what digital transformation means for how we engage with our customers. How can our organisation draw on service design and design thinking frameworks to provide digital services and solutions that our customers love?

We also examine how digital transformation requires us to increasingly understand the ecosystem dynamics in a data-centric and AI age. We provide approaches, ideas for mapping ecosystems, frameworks for assessing risks, and strategies for overcoming those risks as you try to scale your digital ecosystem.

And finally, this course concludes with a very important experiential component. Participants engage in a fun, creative, and rigorous design sprint for digital innovation, which is custom developed for the Programme. This will give you a taste, as well as a real experience, in agile working. And it will help you build your collaborative potential for innovating within your teams in the Organisation.

The Business School programme on Digital Innovation and Transformation is a tailored one, which brings key ideas and insights on the topic from across different areas of information systems, organisational theory, and innovation to build your competence in a very multidisciplinary way. Another really important reason for coming on the programme is that Cambridge, as you know, is a very special, amazing place, with over 800 years of renowned scholarship, rich in history and culture. I look forward to having you on our programme in the near future.