Four Phases of the Portfolio Management of Digital Innovation Initiatives for Realizing Strategic Value

Organizations increasingly rely on digital technologies to innovate, transform, and realize strategic value. They invest with limited resources in a portfolio of digital innovation initiatives. Executives struggle to realize strategic value from their portfolio of digital innovation initiatives. Digital innovations differ from traditional innovations, and managing a portfolio of digital innovation initiatives requires different principles than traditional innovation portfolio management. We analyzed how a global financial institution developed a new process to manage a portfolio of digital innovations that enabled it to realize more strategic objectives faster. We identified nine principles and integrated them into four phases of portfolio management, which form a novel model for the portfolio management of digital innovation initiatives. Our findings help academics better understand how to manage portfolios of digital innovation initiatives and help executives to realize significant strategic value.