This Study Polled 300 Top Executives and Found 3 Common Mindsets That Successful Leaders Share

When it comes to the tech economy, the term “disruption” has been so overused that it has become irrelevant. Everyone is “disrupting” everything, and what was once a meaningful term has lost its value and power in many ways. So, what does it actually mean to be truly disruptive or drive digital transformation? And what can make disruption great again?

A recent study has provided some thoughtful new insights into what strategies successful leaders have put in place to make their digital “disruptive” transformation a reality. Alfresco software published new survey data that explores the key characteristics of leading digital organizations. Working with Forbes Insights, they interviewed more than 300 executives of U.S.- and Europe-based companies with greater than $1 billion in revenue to identify the common characteristics of organizations that continually outperform and successfully disrupt their respective markets.

The survey data illustrates that high-performing organizations are rethinking the ways they leverage technology and their people to employ new ways of thinking, or “levers,” when trying to innovate:​

1. Design thinking

Leverage a relentless focus on optimizing user experience and customer experience to guide all business technology decisions. Design thinking makes sense as a key characteristic of leading companies, and firms like Apple and Amazon come quickly to mind. As Chris Wiborg, Alfresco’s vice president of product marketing, says:

“Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods demonstrates that when it comes to customer experiences, the true digital transformation winners in the end will be those who blend the ones and zeros with an optimized customer experience in ways that others cannot.”

2. Platform thinking

Connect ecosystems of partners and customers that exchange capabilities and data to create added value through systems and solution deployment. Platform thinking is all about opening up systems and information to third parties to create a whole that is better than the sum of its parts.

One relevant example is Uber’s use of Google Maps to inform the user of their ride’s location and arrival time. This sort of embedded experience leveraging open platforms is a hallmark of fast-growing companies, and we can expect to see more of it in the future.

3. Open thinking

Encouraging innovation from both inside and outside the organization to drive new initiatives. The data also shows that top-down, CEO-driven leadership for digital transformation is critical.

Of the companies surveyed, digital transformation efforts were being led directly by the CEO at high-performing organizations (some 49 percent), as opposed to 20 percent for all others. The Alfresco study suggests that high-performing companies start changing their thinking and pulling the levers by:

• Adopting a customer- and user-first viewpoint/strategy
  • Because 85 percent of high-performing organizations in the survey have dedicated user experience teams; and
  • 60 percent plan to increase resources in customer experience over the next three years

• Committing to an open flow of ideas and concepts
  • Because 85 percent of high-performing companies surveyed say a commitment to open standards is important or very important; and
  • 90 percent report the use of open source technologies as being important or very important; and
  • 85 percent describe open data as important or very important
• Driving platform thinking by re-imagining business models supporting a shared economy
  • Because today, fewer than 13 percent of companies provision their systems for customers/suppliers to connect to them; however, 67 percent plan to increase significantly in the next three years; and
  • Currently, only 16 percent consume information from other customer/partner/supplier systems; however, in the next three years, 56 percent plan to significantly increase consumption

The Secret to Achieving Fast Growth

Brian Gwinn, CEO of Greenview Investment Partners pointed out, “Demonstrable value in design, open and platform thinking comes in the form of financial performance. Some 64 percent of the report’s “best-in-class” firms — those excelling in all three types of thinking — report significant annual growth, as defined by exceeding 10 percent EBITDA growth over the past three years.”

So, it would seem that embracing new ways of thinking, versus buzzwords, can make digital transformation and the overplayed notion of “disruption” once again real and rewarding.