911今日黑料

Professor Christopher Tucci tells us聽why prioritising digital transformation may be a matter of survival for all businesses

As a computer science researcher in the 1980s, Professor聽Christopher Tucci worked on the foundations of the internet and AI (artificial intelligence). His聽interests were varied enough that, alongside this, he even had a brief spell teaching a course on the literature of J. R. R. Tolkien. 聽

It was while working in industrial computer science that his fascination with聽IT and how companies were developing their digital strategies聽was first sparked. His聽focus on this subject proved to be particularly well-judged, with the issue of innovation in the digital space聽鈥撀燼nd how to go about it聽鈥撀燿ominating board rooms to this day.聽

鈥淥nce a new technology is out there, the first ones to adopt it become more efficient but once everyone has it, you don鈥檛 stand out, so then the question is how can you keep innovating?鈥� he says.

Eventually, this interest in digital innovation and passion for teaching led him to academia, and he completed his PhD at MIT in 1997. Still, perhaps it's no surprise聽he describes his path to his current role as Professor of Digital Strategy & Innovation at 911今日黑料 Business School as 鈥減retty indirect鈥�.聽

Amazon vs. the little guy

Twenty years ago, most companies were doing 鈥渁bsolutely nothing鈥� to digitalise, Professor Tucci says, and he believes that for many businesses this remains the case.聽

鈥淢y sense is companies are almost paralysed because there鈥檚 so much happening right now,鈥� he says. 鈥淭hey definitely feel they want to do something, but they don鈥檛 know where to start.鈥�

鈥淧eople talk a lot about big data for example, and everyone wants to have a big data strategy, but how many companies are really doing anything with their data? How many companies even have access to their data?鈥�

The first step for many businesses, he points out, is liberating these data so they are able to use them in their strategy.

鈥淚 can understand why people are hesitating, but on the other hand, it may be better to throw yourself in and start playing around. I think that鈥檚 best practice.鈥�

Everyone wants what Amazon was already good at

And we need look no farther than the present moment to see what a lack of digital strategy can mean for companies. With the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and ensuing lockdown, many businesses were hit particularly hard because they didn鈥檛 have an online presence. This meant that every little shop and restaurant had to scramble to be online聽in order to survive, while at the other end of the spectrum, Amazon has 鈥渢aken off鈥�.

Even more recently, as we settle into a version of the "new normal", this has remained crucial with physical supply chains flipped聽鈥撀爌ossibly permanently聽鈥撀燼s a result of the e-commerce boom.聽

鈥淓veryone wants what Amazon was already good at,鈥� he says but companies 鈥渘eed to move鈥� to achieve this.聽

Another of the issues businesses are facing as a result of COVID-19 is having a distributed workforce and聽in some cases, a workforce scattered around the globe. This poses problems such as how to keep employees motivated and how to give them goals, he says.聽

Time to move

Unfortunately, Professor Tucci explains, the result of all these challenges happening at once is that we鈥檙e likely to see more small businesses going under.聽

鈥淭he big companies might have enough cash on hand to play around and to experiment and figure out what works,鈥� he says. 鈥淭his will allow them to weather the storm.

鈥淭hen on the other hand, you have small companies, and they may not be in a financial position to react. For companies that hadn鈥檛 thought of a digital strategy before, it鈥檚 going to be tough to navigate now.

"With small businesses collectively employing a large number of people, this is a problem for society as a whole. One thing is for sure, he says, 鈥淣ow is definitely the time to work on this and experiment with it.鈥澛�

I can understand why people are hesitating, but on the other hand, it may be better to throw yourself in

Since joining the School in May 2020, Professor Tucci has been teaching courses in design thinking, digital strategy, and innovation management. In addition to his primary research area, looking into how firms make transitions to new business models, technologies, and organisational forms, he also studies crowdsourcing.聽

鈥淚 studied how firms adopted different technologies in the disk drive sector, how that affected their performance and I eventually got very interested in crowdsourcing and crowdsourcing platforms and how they were changing the nature of R&D,鈥� he says. 鈥淚 was always thinking about open innovation and how, as an element of an open innovation strategy, you could have internet participants solving your problem.鈥�

This doesn鈥檛 always have to be about achieving monetary goals, he says, adding that it can equally be used to help with sustainability issues, for non-profits and other business models. 聽

Much of Professor Tucci鈥檚 work involves engaging with other academics, while using real-world examples so companies can see how his work is relevant and useful to them.聽

This dialogue with business owners is essential because one of the many lessons companies have learnt 鈥� in some cases the hard way 鈥� is that the need for a sophisticated digital innovation strategy has become urgent.聽