Digital Transformation of a Manufacturing Company in Light of the Digital Innovation Theory

Many product manufacturing companies are investing in innovative uses of digital technologies to improve the value they offer their customers and users of their products. Transforming themselves from a product innovator into a digital innovator is a challenge with multiple interconnected ramifications for the entire company. Analysis of what a heavy-machinery manufacturer learned on its digital transformation journey shed light on how the organization, its approach to customers, and its culture had to change to enable the move from products to digital solutions. This paper examines these changes in light of digital innovation theory, to assess how the executive management team carried the current themes of the theory into practice. It enriches that theory by bringing customer value into the core of the framework and demonstrating how digital innovation theory supports digitality-oriented transformation of a manufacturing company. This paper also provides business executives practical guidance for managing the transformation process.