Digital to the Core

The Newest Wave of Digital Change

Since the dawn of the Internet, technology has been transforming the business world in successive waves. It started with websites, which gave companies an online presence. Next came e-commerce, which moved customer transactions into the digital world. “Digital marketing” helped sellers reach new markets through social media, search engines and peer-to-peer connections.

The newest phase, “digital business,” brings even deeper change. It involves creating “new business designs by blurring the digital and physical worlds.” Babolet, the French tennis-equipment maker, developed a racquet featuring an embedded digital sensor to gather data about a player’s strokes. GE invested $1 billion in its Global Software Center for harvesting data from multiple sources, even wind turbines or aircraft engines. Automaker Ford is experimenting with self-driving cars using sensors that generate data about the vehicle’s immediate environment. These companies take digital technology “to the core” – transforming their products and how their leaders think about their organization’s place in the world. Ford CEO Mark Fields says the company aspires to be “both...