2019, Inglese, Terry, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Witschel, Hans Friedrich

Contrary to the dominant appearance of the topic ‘digitalization,’ a majority of managers do not know what it means and how they can leverage the development of new technologies and disruptive innovations for their business. Furthermore, doing business is getting increasingly complex due to globalization and specialization. Thus, it looks like everybody is hyperactively looking for an external solution to their managerial challenges while, at the same time, managers seem to have lost their intuition for future direction and are unable to step back and think about intended and unintended consequences of the digital revolution. We, who provide business management education for future leaders, are concerned about this development and teach our students to appreciate the discomfort with the hard work of thinking and reflecting to learn from the insights about innovation, strategy and personal development to achieve improved leadership competence. In this paper, we will present our lessons learnt from asking students of a leadership class at an applied university to write a reflective journal for deep learning purpose.

2017-03-21, von Kutzschenbach, Michael

2017, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Mittemeyer, Peter, Wagner, Werner, Oswald, Gerhard, Kleinemeier, Michael

Many established business models are being revolutionized by huge strides in IT development, the availability of cheap money, and the emergence of new buyer groups. To address these new paradigms, companies need to establish a permanent innovation capability that goes far beyond existing research and development (R&D) and idea management. Innovation capability, often also referred to as (business) innovation, complements a company’s transformation capability, which remains vital. To survive and remain competitive, companies must master both capabilities and the underlying logic in parallel. We use the term antithetic leadership to describe this duality in management behavior. This concept distinguishes between two areas of management logic: business (business transformation and operation) and design (ideation and innovation), each of which has its own theories and entrenched culture. Antithetic leadership is not an additional variant of cooperative leadership, but is rather the deliberate and purposeful practice of contradictory leadership in the same ecosystem at the same time, if necessary, by the same leader. To demonstrate what is happening in this inspiring new area, we will look at a consulting unit of SAP: The Business Transformation Services (BTS) group is facing the challenge of cultivating antithetic leadership, namely finding a way for both management cultures to relate, and enabling a positive exchange of ideas. Until now, the management culture of this group followed purely business logic.

2016, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Zhong, Jia

Die Autohersteller befinden sich in einer heissen Transformationsphase. Die Autos werden zunehmend intelligenter. Gleichzeitig eröffnen neue digitale Technologien unzählige Möglichkeiten für neue Geschäftsmodelle rund ums Auto. Fünf Experten aus der Automobilindustrie, der Forschung und dem Technologiesektor haben uns Einblicke in die Zukunft gewährt.

2018, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Schmid, Alexander, Schoenenberger, Lukas, Dornberger, Rolf

The rapid innovation of digital technologies poses a significant challenge to the healthcare sector. Digital technologies are transforming stakeholder relationships among established industry actors, including those of manufacturers, hospitals, and patients. To be ahead of competitors and to maintain profitability, medical device technology manufacturers (medtech companies) are urged to shift their business focus from product to customer excellence and thus invest in service offerings, focusing on the costs of alternative value delivery and patient outcomes. Such investments require a systemic and holistic understanding of how these changes in strategy affect the external and internal competitive environment. In this chapter, we propose the use of feedback systems thinking to explore the intended and unintended consequences of shifts in strategy, from sequential value chains to platform-oriented thinking. Taking the perspective of a medtech company in the value chain, we highlight challenges arising from hidden limits to growth that prevent the realization of intended achievements. Based on this, we develop hypotheses for the intended and unintended consequences of investing in digital service offerings. We conclude with a discussion of how systems thinking and modeling can support digital strategy development.

2017, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Brønn, Carl

"Digital transformation" is becoming the newest mantra of business leaders. It is clear that there are tremendous business opportunities resulting from this revolution, but there is also a price to be paid. Most management literature focuses on the benefits of digitalization, reflecting the desire to increase performance and efficiency in selected business activities. However, digital transformations may lead to the disruption of established ways of doing the work of the firm, stakeholder power may be fundamentally changed, and there is the potential for redefining the nature of the firm itself. Consequently, the decision to “go digital” requires managers to develop perspectives that have the requisite variety to cope with these challenges. Feedback systems thinking is a powerful means for managers to develop and communicate business models that include those aspects of digitalization that affects their firm’s theory of success. The Uber case illustrates the principles of applying feedback systems thinking to the radical changes that it has presented the public transportation sector. This paper analyzes Uber’s platform business by presenting an endogenous explanation of the drivers and eventual constraints to growth of the theory of success upon which the firm is based. This type of analysis has implications for all firms considering implementing a significant digital transformation process.

2017, von Kutzschenbach, Michael

Digital transformation programs do not have an enviable track record of success. The technical potential of digital technologies is seemingly limitless but it must be grounded in a clear understanding of how the firm creates fundamental values.

2017-03-23, von Kutzschenbach, Michael, Brønn, Carl, Callaos, Nagib, Sanchez, Belkis, Savoie, Michael, Welsch, Friedrich, Carrasquero, Jose Vicente

2017, De Maere, Koen, De Haes, Steven, von Kutzschenbach, Michael

Why is it that, despite the large amount of studies on IT governance, many professionals still fail to put these theories into practice? Building on the previous question, we reviewed the literature to examine how organizational learning theories can help in understanding the gap between the ‘theory' and ‘practice' of IT governance. Thereafter, a focus group discussed this gap within the context of Industry 4.0. The findings indicate important concerns that might hinder learning in organizations, including: lack of shared domain knowledge between business and IT stakeholders, lack of shared understanding and poor diffusion of IT governance practices in the organization. Unless these concerns are successfully resolved, executives will experience difficulties to govern IT successfully within the context of Industry 4.0. We provide recommendations to practitioners with regards to the capabilities which should be present in the organisation to overcome such concerns. These capabilities represent a T-shaped portfolio of skills.

2016-10-20, Luthe, Tobias, von Kutzschenbach, Michael