Hacking Digital

Professor of Innovation and Strategy Michael Wade is an expert on digital transformation. He holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation at IMD and is Director of IMD’s Global Center for Digital Business Transformation. He has published 10 books, more than 100 case studies, and articles on topics including digital business transformation, innovation, strategy, and digital leadership. In 2021 he was elected to the Digital Shapers Hall of Fame by a consortium of Swiss business media, and recently launched the Management under the Microscope podcast, in which he unpacks business myths through conversations with academics and business executives.

Wade helps organizations with the challenges they currently face as they seek to use digital tools and technologies to drive business value. His research shows that 87% of digital transformation programs fail to meet expectations, so his work focuses on identifying the mistakes organizations make when they implement such programs and best practices in execution. What differentiates successful from less successful organizations is how good they are at integrating digital technologies into a broader organizational and cultural transformation, he says. His work also covers ways to improve innovation and creativity, leading effectively in a digital age, and the link between digitalization and ethics.

His latest book, published in October 2021, is Hacking Digital: Best Practices to Implement and Accelerate your Business Transformation, which is aimed at helping companies to solve problems related to digital transformation. Earlier in 2021, he released a book on innovation and creativity called ALIEN Thinking: How to Bring Your Breakthrough Ideas to Life. His 2016 book, Digital Vortex: How Today’s Market Leaders Can Beat Disruptive Competitors at their Own Game, won multiple awards and was a bestseller in several languages.

Wade has also been published in leading journals including Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, the Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, and the Strategic Management Journal, and is a regular contributor to Fortune Magazine, Forbes, and The Conversation, providing commentary on digital business issues and trends.

At IMD, he founded and directs Leading Digital Business Transformation (LDBT), Europe’s first and largest program for executives on digital, and is Director of several other open programs, including Digital Execution (DE), Digital Transformation for Boards (DTB), and the recently launched Digital Transformation Sprint (DTS). He has also designed and directed custom programs related to digital strategy and transformation for dozens of organizations across industries, and sits on a number of corporate boards as an advisor on digitization and business model disruption.

Before joining IMD in 2010, Wade was Associate Professor of Operations Management and Information Systems in the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto. As part of this role, he served as Academic Director of the Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA Program and Associate Director of the International MBA Program.

Selected publications

Hacking Digital: Best Practices to Implement and Accelerate Your Business Transformation (McGraw-Hill, 2021)

ALIEN Thinking: The Unconventional Path to Breakthrough Ideas (PublicAffairs and Penguin Random House, 2021)

Overcoming the psychological hurdles to innovation (Harvard Business Review, 2021)

The building blocks of an AI strategy (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2020)

Three proactive response strategies to COVID-19 business challenges (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2020)

Orchestrating Transformation: How to Deliver Winning Performance with a Connected Approach to Change (DBT Center Press, 2019)

Digital Vortex: How Today’s Market Leaders Can Beat Disruptive Competitors at Their Own Game (DBT Center Press, 2016)

Recognition

Elected to the Digital Shapers Hall of Fame by Bilanz, Handelszeitung, Le Temps and Digitalswitzerland (2021)

Named one of top 10 digital thought leaders in the Digital Shapers listing of a consortium of Swiss business media (2016, 2017, and 2020)

Winner of two Axiom business book awards (2017)

Nominated for Kellogg-Schulich Executive MBA Teaching Award (2009)

Nominated for Seymour Schulich MBA Teaching Excellence Award (2008)

Education

Honors Degree in Business Administration

Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, Canada.

MBA

Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, Canada.

PhD

Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, Canada.

Didier Bonnet focuses on digital economics, digital strategy, disruptive innovation, and the process of large-scale digital transformation for global corporations. A globally recognized thought leader on digital transformation, he was a precursor in anticipating the scale and impact of the digital revolution that is now sweeping through our economies. He is also the author of a bestselling book that makes the provocative argument that the next phase of digital technology adoption will make everything that’s happened so far look like a prelude.

Bonnet helps boards and management teams make the shift to the new digital economy and implement the changes in business models, operations, and customer experiences that this requires.

With over 30 years’ experience in strategy and transformation consulting, he is a trusted advisor and coach to senior executives who are leading their organizations through complex digital transformations.

His work spans information economics, digital transformation, platform strategies, digital innovation, the future of work, and organizational transformation. He also leads research programs on how the digital economy is impacting individuals, corporations, and society at large.

He has designed and directed customized digital transformation programs for large global B2C and B2B organizations and provided coaching advice to senior leaders in a variety of industries, including telecoms, banking, high-tech, insurance, consumer goods, media, transport, and industrial goods.

At IMD, Bonnet is Co-Director of the Digital Transformation in Practice (DTIP), Digital Transformation for Boards (DTB) and Leading Customer-Centric Strategies (LCCS) programs, and he teaches strategy and digital transformation in several other open programs. For the last 10 years, he has led a joint research program with the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy (IDE), at the Sloan School of Management, on the impact of digital technology on business models and society. He is also a non-executive board member of the SKEMA Foundation.

Bonnet is co-author of the bestselling book, Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation, which has been described as the “source code” for understanding the DNA of successful digital transformation. The book’s insights won praise from former EMC Chair and CEO Joe Tucci and former Pernod Ricard CEO Pierre Pringuet. This was followed in 2021 by Hacking Digital: Best Practices to Implement and Accelerate your Business Transformation, which provides a practical guide for how to navigate the challenges of digital transformation execution.

Bonnet’s research has been published in top management journals such as Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, R&D Management, Quarterly Review of Marketing, Strategy Direction, and Business Strategy Review. He is also a public speaker on digital transformation and has frequently been published and quoted in the media, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, the Financial Times, The Economist, the BBC, CNN, and CNBC.

Bonnet joined IMD in 2019 after a 30-year career in strategy consulting. He was Global Digital Transformation Practice Leader at Capgemini Invent and Global Leader of the Telecom, Media & Entertainment practice at Gemini Consulting. He started his career in hi tech and consulting with Coopers & Lybrand Consulting and Putnam Hayes & Bartlett.

Selected publications

Hacking Digital: Best Practices to Implement and Accelerate your Business Transformation (McGraw Hill, 2021)

The new elements of digital transformation (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2021)

Why innovation’s future isn’t (just) open (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2020)

Lifting the lid on disruption fever (Journal of Strategy and Management, 2020)

Busting the myths of digital transformation: Don’t buy the hype (Indian Management Journal, 2020)

Reframing growth strategy in a digital economy (MIT Sloan Management Review, 2017)

It’s time for boards to cross the digital divide (Harvard Business Review, 2014)

Leading Digital: Turning Technology into Business Transformation (Harvard Business Review Press, 2014)

Recognition

Named as one of the Top 50 Global Thought Leaders and Influencers on Digital Transformation and Disruption by Thinkers360 (2021)

CDO Conclave Global Digital Leader of the Year (2018)

Education

MSc

SKEMA Business School, France

DPhil

University of Oxford

Tomoko Yokoi is a researcher and writer at the Global Center for Digital
Business Transformation at IMD. She is a Forbes contributor on topics related to digital transformation and innovation, and her articles have been published in numerous practitioner outlets such as MIT Sloan Management Review and Quartz, among others. Tomoko brings practitioner insights to her research, drawing from 20 years of experience as a senior executive in B2B and B2C industries ranging from industrial technologies and healthcare to enterprise software and educational services. As a part-time digital entrepreneur, she keeps her finger on the pulse of new technologies and trends, and provides
advisory services in digital business transformations. She holds an MBA from IMD and an MALD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Nikolaus Obwegeser is a professor and director of the Institute for Digital
Technology Management at the Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH). His areas of expertise include digital business transformation and innovation. A scholar and author, Nikolaus has had his research published in numerous highly regarded academic and practitioner outlets, including MIT Sloan Management Review, Technovation, and the Journal of Product Innovation Management. Before joining BFH, Nikolaus was a research fellow at IMD and an associate professor of information systems at Aarhus University (Denmark). Apart from his research activities, Nikolaus regularly provides advisory and consulting services for public and private organizations in the area of digital business transformation.