Digital Transformation companies treat it like a slogan without fully understanding what it means. A digital transformation is simply a strategic move that companies can take to change their position. Kind of like moving a chess piece on a chess board.

The Digital Transformation Process

1. Be Honest: Where Are You Right Now?

Digital transformation doesn’t start with technology. It starts with truth.

Are you scaling quickly and need to sustain growth? Or are you stuck in late-stage maturity, unsure how to breathe new life into a legacy product?

“If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you're doing.”
— W. Edwards Deming

Every product sits somewhere on the lifecycle curve — Intro, Growth, Maturity, Decline. Step back. Observe. Diagnose. Because the wrong strategy applied to the wrong stage doesn’t just stall momentum. It accelerates decline.

2. Dream a Little: Where Do You Want to Be?

This is not about future-proofing. It’s about directionality.

Digital transformation is not just a reaction to disruption. It’s an intentional re-orientation. A shift in posture. The most powerful moves are rooted in a deep understanding of your environment, your customers, and the structural incentives at play.

"A flower does not compete with the flower next to it. It just blooms."
— Rory Sutherland (probably paraphrasing someone more botanical)

Looking ahead isn’t about predicting the future. It’s about imagining multiple possible ones — and choosing the one that aligns with your values, capabilities, and competitive asymmetry.

3. Decide: What Move Will You Make?

Every transformation is a decision. A choice to change the shape of your business. Some moves are bold. Others are quiet revolutions. What matters is that the move fits your moment.

Here’s a menu of the most common digital plays:

• Pivot – Change direction with intent.
• Sustainability Shift – Build long-term viability into the core.
• Turnaround – Repair, reset, recover.
• Automation – Reduce friction, cost, and delay.
• Brand Merger – Combine to scale or survive.
• Brand Renewal – Refresh the story, reframe the value.
• Brand Restructure – Reorganize what exists to better serve what’s next.
• Creation – Make something net-new.
• Digital Migration – Move to better terrain.
• Diversification – Spread risk, widen surface area.
• Expansion – Go wider, deeper, or both.
• Modernization – Upgrade tools, processes, and thinking.
• Personalization – Serve with specificity.
• Platformization – Build systems others can plug into.
• Reposition – Change perception without changing essence.

No move is inherently better. But every move needs to be made on purpose.

4. Let’s Go: Act With Intent

There’s a moment when planning ends and motion begins. Most companies wait too long. They analyze until the opportunity decays.

Deming would say: learning is best done by doing. Sutherland might argue that the irrational move is often the most rational one, in hindsight.

So yes, orient. Reflect. Strategize. But at some point, leap.

Digital transformation isn’t a deck. It’s a series of lived decisions. You don’t become a digital organization. You behave like one.