Wharton@Work

May 2021 | 

Leading in the Digital Age: From Disrupted to Disruptor

Leading in the Digital Age: From Disrupted to Disruptor

Just a few years ago, technology advances and applications moved slowly enough for firms to be able to catch on and catch up — that’s what happened when Restaurant Brands International created a chief technology and development officer position in 2018. It realized the need to bring its fast-food brands, including Burger King, up to speed with competitors who were already rolling out services like order-taking kiosks and home delivery. Three years ago, it could work. Now, you can be left behind before you even understand what happened.

For many firms, especially those with legacy business models, it seems the best they can hope for in an era of digital disruption is to excel at keeping pace. Not true, says Wharton professor of management Rahul Kapoor, who directs the new Leading Digital Transformation program. “The current narrative in the press is that disruption is bad, startups are changing the rules of the game, and incumbents can’t keep up. That’s simply not correct. Digital turbulence creates potential opportunities for all. You just need the right capabilities to use technology to transform any business.”

Digital Leadership Requires Growth

Kapoor notes that the relentless pace of change creates new demands on leaders. “Leadership in the digital age takes vigilance coupled with agility. You must be able to navigate disruptive trends and lead transformation around a broad array of emerging digital technologies including AI, blockchain, and robotics, continuously scanning for and identifying trends and threats before others do. It’s not about simply moving offline business online, which is why we won’t give you a prescription. Digital disruption means different things to different companies and industries.”

Instead, participants are exposed to content from MBA curriculum that focuses on developing the acumen and skills needed to spot trends and threats sooner, the strategic ability to create a quick and robust response, and the organizational agility to pivot people and processes in alignment with that response. “You will learn how to create a proactive organization that leaves behind those who can only react to existing threats and disruptions,” says Kapoor.

A New Value-Creating Process

Kapoor describes disruption as a process that involves your customers, your business model, the ways you are currently creating value, and whether and how you are competing at the ecosystem and platform levels. “Digital is a new canvas that allows you to develop different ways of creating value and monetizing that value, but everything must be aligned for the long term,” he explains, “which means understanding the short-term tradeoffs needed to create desired results you are looking for.”

“Innovation and marketing are pieces of the process,” he continues, “and we all know design thinking, business model canvas, lean start up, and their importance. But digital strategy includes much more. It takes a long-game approach from the perspectives of strategy, organization, and leadership to create sustained digital transformation.”

Seeing the Future Sooner

The program includes sessions with George Day, co-author of See Sooner, Act Faster: How Vigilant Leaders Thrive in an Era of Digital Turbulence. The Wharton professor emeritus, an expert on marketing and strategy, says, “Vigilance is much more than a single individual’s heightened alertness; it is characterized by collective curiosity, candor, and a willingness to play the long game, which must be nurtured throughout the firm.”

Day says vigilant companies follow three principles for navigating digital turbulence. “First, they direct their attention to the most vital and active parts of their orbit. Second, they instill a sense of prudent urgency throughout their organization. Finally, they build the array of skills needed to become more agile. Taken together, these three principles can surmount the destructive, siloed thinking that concentrates attention only on immediate tasks. Leaders who embrace them take a longer view that lets them see the future sooner.”

Personalized Learning

Kapoor says there is no 2x2 that solves every company’s current challenges. Instead, he and other faculty who teach in the program “equip you to develop your own framework. I lead daily integration sessions to help you extract pieces of the classroom learnings to fit the world you live in. You will explore what digital transformation means for your organization through hands-on exercises and a full-day simulation. We provide a set of well-researched insights and ideas, and you transform them to solve your unique situation.”

Kapoor, who also teaches in Business Model Innovation in the Age of AI, says the new program’s focus on leadership in addition to strategy and the organizational capabilities that make execution possible set it apart. “Moving from disrupted to disruptor is a long game. Even if you began building digital capacity a few years ago, it’s not over. The speed and scope of change means holding on to an advantage takes constant vigilance and agility. Just because a company has responded to digital threats and stayed a step or two ahead doesn’t mean it will be in that position tomorrow.”