Digitalization management

What is digitalization management?

Leading digitalization is about being able to put the organization's digital strategy into practice and manage the complex process of transforming a traditional business model into one that can fully benefit from digital technologies. The role of the leader in this transformation is multifaceted.

As a digital transformation leader, you must first and foremost understand the technological opportunities and how they can be used to optimize work processes, create new business models or improve customer service. The leader doesn't need to be an expert in every technological detail, but must be able to understand and communicate the strategic perspective.

An important part of the manager's role is also to navigate the changes that digitalization brings to employees. This may involve restructuring teams, changing work processes or even redefining entire job roles. As a manager, it's crucial to lead and motivate employees through these changes, ensure clear communication and support learning and development.

Finally, leaders play a crucial role in creating a culture that supports digital transformation. It's about creating an environment where innovation and experimentation are welcome, failure is acceptable and there is a focus on constant learning.

In an increasingly digital world, digitalization management is no longer a choice, but a necessity. It's not a one-off task, but an ongoing process that requires sustained focus and commitment from leadership. A great digital leader is one who can strategically guide their organization, support their employees through change and create a culture that fosters digital innovation.

Why should you be able to lead a digitalization process?

In today's business world, digitalization is more than just a buzzword - it's a crucial factor for business survival and success. As a leader, mastering digitalization leadership is essential to ensure the organization's continued growth and relevance.

One of the main reasons for this is the speed at which technological advances are evolving. New technology can radically and rapidly change industries, meaning that businesses that fail to keep up risk being overtaken by competitors who are better able to adapt to the digital landscape.

In addition, effective digitalization management can bring significant improvements to an organization's operations. By implementing new technologies, businesses can improve efficiency, increase productivity and enhance the customer experience. As a leader, it is your responsibility to identify these opportunities and ensure they are implemented in a way that brings the most value to the organization.

But perhaps most crucially, leading digitalization is also about leading people through change. Digital transformation can be a challenging process that requires employees to learn new skills and adapt to new ways of working. As a leader, you play a key role in supporting your employees through this change, communicating clearly about the vision and purpose of the change, and creating an environment where learning and development is prioritized.

In an increasingly digital world, the ability to lead digitalization is therefore crucial. It's not just a technical challenge, but also a leadership challenge, and those who can master both will be best equipped to drive their organizations forward in the digital era.

LEAD is part of the Municipal Technology Partnership

The Municipal Technology Partnership is a 1.5-year process where each participating municipality gets help to implement a specific digital solution that has already created benefits in one or more other municipalities.

In the partnership, we focus on the organization in which the technologies will work, good implementation, employee involvement, strong interdisciplinary collaboration and a smooth transition to operations.

Experts from LEAD will assist in the various processes of the partnership, ensuring progress and helping participants reach their goals .

LEAD's approach to digitalization management

Digitalization management: Digitalization is a management task, but many managers - from top management to HR managers - are unsure of their responsibilities and tasks. We help clarify tasks, mandates and responsibilities. In addition, we develop the skills of managers and conduct a process where roles are trained and tested in practice.

Strategy: The time may have passed for digital strategies in the old-fashioned understanding of what strategy is. Digital is part of the entire organization and blends in with analog, physical meetings and organizational processes. We have extensive experience with strategy processes, process facilitation of leadership and an understanding of digitalization that we can use to steer you safely through digitalization.
Implementation and benefit realization: Both public and private organizations experience challenges in implementing digital initiatives - and thus reaping the benefits. We are experts in implementing solutions and realizing the benefits.
Interim project management of digitalization and digital maturity: Implementing digital initiatives often requires a lot from both managers and project managers. Sometimes the right person to take on this responsibility is missing. We provide interim project managers two to five per week. The project manager is a highly competent person who assists throughout the project.
Keynotes and inspirational presentations: If you need an inspiring presentation for a management and employee seminar or a full day on digitalization management, we're here to help. We design the course and content together with you.

If you're working with digitalization management, consider working with LEAD. We start at the top of the management chain and have both a practical and professional understanding of the many tasks, dilemmas and challenges of management. We understand digitalization and have been working with it for a number of years - both practically and in a research context.

Leading digitalization is similar to other leadership tasks. The leader must articulate purpose, vision, communicate meaning, lead change and manage conflict. But it's also an area where the leader is dependent on specialists inside and outside their own organization who speak a professional language and use processes that they often don't understand. The leader has to delegate and involve on uncertain ground. That's why managing digitalization places high demands on the leader, and that's where we can help.

Case: Managing digital and technological initiatives requires leadership

In this case study, you can read about how Viborg Municipality's management feels the challenge of attracting and retaining skilled labor. As is the case in many other parts of the country.

Facing it will require many efforts in a wide range of areas, and it requires good collaboration across the entire organization.

Technology and digitalization are two key focus areas for the municipality and they are working hard to manage and succeed with this challenge. Therefore, together with LEAD, they have concentrated on ensuring a clear direction and a clear division of responsibilities in the work with digital and technological initiatives across the municipality.

You can read much more about Viborg Municipality's work in this area in our e-book.

How we can help you

We offer you management and organizational sparring, research-based teaching and presentations on visioning processes, as well as training courses with a specific focus on giving you and your organization general management skills. Read examples of our services here.

Presentations

Inspiring research-based presentations on leadership and digitalization for all levels of your organization

Sparring

Sparring in the development of your strategy, decisions and initiatives.

Workshop

Facilitation of active workshops focusing on competence development at management and executive level.

Contact us to learn more about what we can do for your organization

Are you facing an organizational change? Do you need strategic advice or a cultural development program?

Contact us and together we will tailor a process that develops the exact competencies and structures that strengthen and future-proof your organization.

Kaare Pedersen

Partner

Ph.D, Cand. Techn. Soc.

E-mail: kp@lead.eu

Phone: 31 25 35 35 04