Leadership for a Digital Culture Transformation

The past decade saw the exponential development of a globalised world, which is digital and networked, with online real-time availability of all relevant information over the spectrum of applications. Involved in the value creation and distribution process of companies, digital technology enables highly flexible, customised industrial processes with high resource efficiency and short lead times ensuring that manufacturing enterprises stay ahead of the competitive curve. Furthermore, this enables innovative new approaches in the organization and control of production systems and associated product life cycles. Consumers and the economy have become more volatile, fast paced and less predictable. As a result, the modern workplace has become Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Research has shown that the impact of digitalisation on leadership worldwide was greater than was initially perceived, especially with respect to establishing a leadership culture, which was grossly underestimated. With the exponential pace of technological evolution, adoption and innovation, there are currently fundamental 'disruptive trends' happening in the world; one of which is considered no ordinary disruption in that forces are breaking all known trends. Research has further shown that when a technology shift occurs, organisations tend to also face a 'business model dilemma', in that the ways in which individuals and enterprises are doing business are metamorphosing so quickly, that many of them find it hard to keep pace with the paradigm shift. Against this background, this research study aims to determine if a systemic approach based on 'systems thinking' underpinning an 'Evolutionary Digital Transformation Matrix' (EDTM), would serve to support leadership knowledge and understanding of digital transformation, and aid manufacturing enterprises to embrace a digital culture, which by implication would ensure that the competitive advantage they hold in their respective industries are maintained or alternatively, elevated to above the current status quo. The Evolutionary Digital Transformation Matrix (EDTM) is so designed as to combine digital technology, with social elements from two distinct perspectives, namely from a 'managerial' leadership perspective and from a 'cultural' leadership perspective.