Research Centers

Introduction

The Global Center for Digital Business Transformation provides fresh insights and evidence-based advice to help organizations successfully navigate their digital transformation journeys. Established in 2015, the Center is a pioneer in best practice research on digital transformation. In 2021, in recognition of his contribution to the field, center Director Michael Wade was inducted into the Swiss Digital Shapers Hall of Fame.

Year in review

Programs
In 2021, the center continued to deliver its cutting-edge suite of programs across a variety of face-to-face and virtual formats, including Leading Digital Business Transformation, Digital Execution and the pioneering Digital Transformation Sprint.

Research
In 2021, the center shifted its focus towards more high-quality academic research, targeting FT50 journals. It added a new Research Fellow, Lazaros Goutas, and launched a research collaboration with the Swiss Digital Initiative, focused on corporate digital responsibility.

Center expertise contributed to two books in 2021. Hacking Digital: Best Practices to Implement and Accelerate Your Business Transformation by Michael Wade, Didier Bonnet, Tomoko Yokoi and Nikolaus Obwegeser, and ALIEN Thinking: How to Bring Your Breakthrough Ideas to Life by Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux and Michael Wade.

The article by the ALIEN Thinking authors, “Overcoming the Psychological Hurdles to Innovation”, was published in the November-December issue of the Harvard Business Review.

Surveying more than 1,200 business leaders around the world, the 2021 version of the Digital Vortex report delved into the topic of digital disruption in a world transformed by the pandemic.

The center established an ongoing research project examining corporate digital responsibility to better understand how digitization, ethics and sustainability will impact organizations.

Outreach
With the support of Professor of Strategy and Digital Transformation Didier Bonnet, the center accelerated its outreach efforts to engage with a wide range of stakeholders, including the delivery of dozens of presentations to policymakers, media and the business world.

The center curated a successful Digital Leader Summit in September 2021, attended by 15 companies, and launched the Digital Leader Circle in December, which brings together influential digital experts from the corporate world every quarter for knowledge sharing and learning.

A new triannual newsletter on digital thought leadership was distributed to consenting IMD alumni, with two editions delivered in 2021, and a new-look center website went live, showcasing all of IMD’s digital research.