Most companies want their businesses to keep pace with digital startups, but end up bogged down by the need to fix the daily challenges that their decades-old IT systems create. How do you redesign and rebuild major infrastructure while keeping the day-to-day work going? This kind of challenge is often referred to as “repairing the airplane while you’re flying it.” But a more instructive analogy might be the redesign of a major city’s infrastructure.
Leading Digital Transformation Is Like Urban Planning
Lessons from infrastructure projects in Dubai, Boston, and Shanghai.
August 02, 2017
Summary.
Most companies hope to reorient their businesses to keep pace with digital startups. Instead, they end up getting bogged down in fixing the daily challenges that their decades-old IT systems create. One way managers can break out of this vicious cycle is to learn from the way that major cities have evolved and kept themselves relevant. To match the speed of digital competitors, managers can learn from three urban renewal strategies commonly followed by major metropolises. They should focus on building glistening landmarks that anchor their digital strategy (as Dubai has done), removing roadblocks and bottlenecks to improve their underlying speed and agility (Boston), or change course altogether to construct an entirely new city (Shanghai).
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Accelerate your career with Harvard ManageMentor®. HBR Learning’s online leadership training helps you hone your skills with courses like Digital Intelligence . Earn badges to share on LinkedIn and your resume. Access more than 40 courses trusted by Fortune 500 companies.
Excel in a world that's being continually transformed by technology.