The author captures the essence with digital strategy: for the uninitiated, it can fail real fast.  He offers a sensible approach, one that reminds us of putting ”one foot in front of the other, and soon you are walking out the door…”

 

Instead of a digital strategy that starts with digital technology go small.  Start with identifying a clear business outcome, goal or problem that exists in the enterprise, with customers, suppliers or associates.  What needs to be tangibly different? What persistent need exists?  What do customers or associated really want to do? Finding a business goal or outcome starts the definition in an actionable and practical way that leads to customer value and company revenue.

 

Working from the business goal, issue or objective forward not only creates clear criteria for business value and focus; but also embraces the accretive nature of digital technology solutions.  This is not so much a digital strategy as an approach that roots digital technology into the business.  It is an approach that allows digital capabilities to build on one another, creating an expanding set of digital abilities.  The initial digital solution becomes part of a platform for other digital solutions that expand digital value potential, shown in the figure below, rather than a convergent strategy approach that narrows down the possible and probable to get to something profitable.