Your organization already has a digital strategy, but there is a lack of understanding of what digital means across the enterprise. Digital investments have been made in the past but failed to yield or demonstrate business value. Given the pace of change, the current digital strategy is outdated, and new digital opportunities need to be identified to inform the technology innovation roadmap.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Turn your digital strategy into a compelling change story that will create a unified vision of how you want to transform your business.
Impact and Result
- Identify new digitally enabled growth opportunities.
- Understand which digital ideas yield the biggest return and the value they generate for the organization.
- Understand the impact of opportunities on your business capabilities.
- Map a customer journey to identify opportunities to transform stakeholder experiences.
Formalize Your Digital Business Strategy
Stay relevant in an evolving digital economy
Executive Summary
Your Challenge | Common Obstacles | Solution |
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Info-Tech Insight
Turn your existing digital strategy into a compelling change story that will create a unified vision of how you want to transform your business.
Info-Tech’s Digital Transformation Journey
Your journey: An IT roadmap for your Digital Business Strategy
By now, you understand your current business context and capabilities
By this point you have leveraged industry roundtables to better understand the art of the possible, exploring global trends, shifts in market forces, customer needs, emerging technologies, and economic forecasts to establish your business objectives and innovation goals. Now you need to formalize digital business strategy. | Phase 1: Industry Trends Report Phase 2: Digital Maturity Assessment Phase 3: Zero-In on Business Objectives Business and innovation goals are established through stakeholder interviews and a heatmap of your current capabilities for transformation. |
Since 2020, market dynamics have forced organizations to reassess their strategies
The unprecedented pace of global disruptions has become both a curse and a silver lining for many CIOs. The ability to maximize the value of digital will be vital to remain relevant in the new digital economy.
Formalize your digital strategy to address industry trends and market dynamics
The goal of this phase is to ensure the scope of the current digital strategy reflects the right opportunities to allocate capital to resources, assets, and capabilities to drive strategic growth and operational efficiency.
There are three key activities outlined in this deck that that can be undertaken by industry members to help evolve their current digital business strategy.
- Identify New Digitally Enabled Growth Opportunities
- Host an ideation session to identify new leapfrog ideas
- Discuss assumptions, value drivers, and risks
- Translate ideas into opportunities and consolidate
- Evaluate New Digital Opportunities and Business Capabilities
- Build an opportunity profile
- Identify business capabilities for transformation
- Transform Stakeholder Journeys
- Understand the impact of opportunities on value-chains
- Identify stakeholder personas
- Build a stakeholder journey map
- Compile your new list of digital opportunities

Info-Tech’s approach
- Identify New Digital Opportunities
- Conduct an ideation session
- Identify leapfrog ideas from trends
- Evaluate each leapfrog idea to define opportunity
- Evaluate Opportunities and Business Capabilities
- Build Opportunity Profile
- Understand the impact of opportunities on business capabilities
- Transform Stakeholder Journeys
- Analyze value chains
- Map your Stakeholder Journey
- Breakdown opportunities into initiatives
Overview of Key Activities
Formalize your digital business strategy | Methodology | ||
Members Engaged
Info-Tech
| Phase 1: New Digital Opportunities | Phase 2: Evaluate Opportunities and Business Capabilities | Phase 3: Transform Stakeholder Journeys |
Content Leveraged
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Deliverable: Client’s Digital Business Strategy | Phase 1: Deliverable
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Glossary of Terms
LEAPFROG IDEAS
The concept was originally developed in the area of industrial organizations and economic growth. Leapfrogging is the notion that organizations can identify opportunities to skip one or several stages ahead of their competitors.
DIGITAL OPPORTUNITIES
Opening of new possibilities to transform or change your business model and create operational efficiencies and customer experiences through the adoption of digital platforms, solutions, and capabilities.
INITIATIVES
Breakdown of opportunities into actionable initiatives that creates value for organizations through new or changes to business models, operational efficiencies, and customer experiences.
- LEAPFROG IDEAS:
- Precision medicine
- DIGITAL OPPORTUNITY:
- Machine Learning to sniff out pre-cancer cells
- INITIATIVES:
- Define genomic analytics capabilities and recruit
- Data quality and cleansing review
- Implement Machine Learning SW
Identify Digitally Enabled Opportunities
Host an ideation session to turn trends into growth opportunities with new leapfrog ideas.
Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 |
Identify New Digitally Enabled Opportunities | Evaluate Opportunities and Business Capabilities | Transform Stakeholder Journeys |
Phase 1
Host an Ideation Session to Identify New Digital Opportunities
1.1 IDENTIFY AND ASSEMBLE YOUR KEY STAKEHOLDERS | Build support and eliminate blind spots It is important to make sure the right stakeholders participate in this working group. Designing a digital strategy will require debate, insights, and business decisions from a broad perspective across the enterprise. The focus is on the value to be generated from digital. | Consider:
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1.2 ESTABLISH GUIDING PRINCIPLES | Define the guardrails to focus your ideas All ideas are great until you need one that works. Establish guiding principles that will help you establish the perimeters for turning big ideas into opportunities. | Consider:
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1.3 LEVERAGE STRATEGIC FORESIGHT TO IDENTIFY LEAPFROG IDEAS | Create space to elicit “big ideas” Leverage industry roundtables and trend reports imagining how digital solutions can help drive strategic growth and operational efficiency. Brainstorm new opportunities and discuss their viability to create value and better experiences for your stakeholders. | Consider:
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Host an Ideation Session
Identify digitally enabled opportunities | Industry Roundtables and Trend Reports Industry Trends Report Business Documents Digital Maturity Assessment | Activity: 2-4 hours |
Members Engaged
Info-Tech
| Hold a visioning session with key business executives (e.g., CIO, CEO, CFO, CCO, and COO) and others as needed. Here is a proposed agenda of activities for the ideation session:
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Deliverable:
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1.1 Executive Stakeholder Engagement
Assemble Executive Stakeholders
Set yourself up for success with these three steps.
CIOs tasked with designing digital strategies must add value to the business. Given the goal of digital is to transform the business, CIOs will need to ensure they have both the mandate and support from the business executives. Designing the digital strategy is more than just writing up a document. It is an integrated set of business decisions to create a competitive advantage and financial returns. Establishing a forum for debates, decisions, and dialogue will increase the likelihood of success and support during execution. | 1. Confirm your role | 2. Identify Stakeholders | 3. Diverse Perspective |
The digital strategy aims to transform the business. Given the scope, validate your role and mandate to lead this work. Identify a business executive to co-sponsor. | Identify key decision-makers and influencers who can help make rapid decisions as well as garner support across the enterprise. | Don’t be afraid to include contrarians or naysayers. They will help reduce any blind spots but can also become the greatest allies through participation. |
1.2 Guiding Principles
Set the Guiding Principles
Guiding principles help define the parameters of your digital strategy. They act as priori decisions that establish the guardrails to limit the scope of opportunities from the perspective of people, assets, capabilities, and budgets that are aligned with the business objectives. Consider these components when brainstorming guiding principles:
Consider these three components when brainstorming
Breadth | Digital strategy should span people, culture, organizational structure, governance, capabilities, assets, and technology. The guiding principle should cover a 3600 view across the entire organization. |
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Planning Horizon | Timing should anchor stakeholders to look to the long-term with an eye on the foreseeable future i.e., business value realization in one, two, and three years. |
Depth | Needs to encompass more than the enterprise view of lofty opportunities but establish boundaries to help define actionable initiatives (i.e., individual projects). |
1.2 Guiding Principles
Examples of Guiding Principles
IT Principle Name | IT Principle Statement |
1.Enterprise value focus | We aim to provide maximum long-term benefits to the enterprise as a whole while optimizing total costs of ownership and risks. |
2.Fit for purpose | We maintain capability levels and create solutions that are fit for purpose without over engineering them. |
3.Simplicity | We choose the simplest solutions and aim to reduce operational complexity of the enterprise. |
4.Reuse > buy > build | We maximize reuse of existing assets. If we can’t reuse, we procure externally. As a last resort, we build custom solutions. |
5.Managed data | We handle data creation and modification and use it enterprise-wide in compliance with our data governance policy. |
6.Controlled technical diversity | We control the variety of what technology platforms we use. |
7.Managed security | We manage security enterprise-wide in compliance with our security governance policy. |
8.Compliance to laws and regulations | We operate in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations. |
9.Innovation | We seek innovative ways to use technology for business advantage. |
10.Customer centricity | We deliver best experiences to our customers with our services and products. |
11.Digital by default | We always put digital solutions at the core of our plans for all viable solutions across the organization. |
12.Customer-centricity by design | We design new products and services with the goal to drive greater engagement and experiences with our customers. |
1.3 Trend-Analysis
Leverage strategic foresight to identify growth opportunities
What is Strategic Foresight?
In times of increasing uncertainty, rapid change, market volatility, and complexity, the development of strategies can be difficult. Strategic foresight offers a solution.
Strategic foresight refers to an approach that uses a range of methodologies, such as scanning the horizon for emerging changes and signals, analyzing megatrends, and developing multiple scenarios to identify opportunities (source: OECD, 2022). However, it cannot predict the future and is distinct from:
- Forecasting tools
- Strategic planning
- Scenario planning (only)
- Predictive analyses of the future
Why is Strategic Foresight useful?
- Reduce uncertainties about the future
- Better anticipate changes
- Future-proof to stress test proposed strategies
- Explore innovation to reveal new products, services, and approaches
Explore Info-Tech’s Strategic Foresight Process Tool
“When situations lack analogies to the past, it’s hard to envision the future.”
- J. Peter Scoblic, HBR, 2020
1.3 Trend-Analysis
Leverage industry roundtables and trend reports to understand the art of the possible
Uncover important business and industry trends that can inform possibilities for technology innovation. Explore trends in areas such as:
Market research is critical in identifying factors external to your organization and identifying technology innovation that will provide a competitive edge. It’s important to evaluate the impact each trend or opportunity will have in your organization and market. Visit Info-Tech’s Trends & Priorities Research Center Visit Info-Tech’s Industry Coverage Research to get started. | Images are from Info-Tech’s Rethinking Higher Education Report and 2023 Tech Trends Report |
1.3 Trend-Analysis
Scan the Horizon
Understand how the environment is evolving in your industry
Scan the horizon to detect early signs of future changes or threats.
Horizon scanning involves scanning, analyzing, and communicating changes in an organization’s environment to prepare for potential threats and opportunities. Much of what we know about the future is based around the interactions and trajectory of macro trends, trends, and drivers. These form the foundations for future intelligence.
Macro Trends | A macro trend captures a large-scale transformative trend on a global scale that could impact your addressable market |
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Industry Trend | An industry trend captures specific use cases of the macro trend in relation to your market and industry. Consider this in terms of shifts in your market dynamics i.e., competitors, size, transaction, international trade, supply/demand, etc. |
Driver(s) | A driver is an underlying force causing the trend to occur. There can be multiple causal forces, or drivers, that influence a trend, and multiple trends can be influenced by the same causal force. |
Identify signals of change in the present and their potential future impacts.
1.3 Trend-Analysis
Identify macro trends
Macro trends capture a global shift that can change the market and the industry. Here are examples of macro-trends to consider when scanning the horizon for your own organization:
Talent Availability | Customer Expectations | Emerging Technologies | Regulatory System | Supply Chain Continuity |
Decentralized workforce Hybrid workforce Diverse workforce Skills gap Digital workforce Multigenerational workforce | Personalization Digital experience Data ownership Transparency Accessibility On-demand Mobility | AI & robotics Virtual world Ubiquitous connectivity Genomics (nano, bio, smart….) Big data | Market control Economic shifts Digital regulation Consumer protection Global green | Resource scarcity Sustainability Supply chain digitization Circular supply chains Agility Outsource |
1.3 Trend-Analysis
Determine impact and relevance of trends
Understand which trends create opportunities or risks for your organization.
Key Concepts:
Once an organization has uncovered a set of trends that are of potential importance, a judgment must be made on which of the trends should be prioritized to understand their impact on your market and ultimately, the implications for your business or organization. Consider the following criteria to help you prioritize your trends.
Impact to Industry: The degree of impact the trend will have on your industry and market to create possibilities or risks for your business. Will this trend create opportunities for the business? Or does it pose a risk that we need to mitigate?
Relevance to Organization. The relevance of the trend to your organization. Does the trend align with the mission, vision, and business objectives of your organization?
Activity: 2-4hours
In order to determine which trends will have an impact on your industry and are relevant to your organization, you need to use a gating approach to short-list those that may create opportunities to capitalize on while you need to manage the ones that pose risk.
Impact | What does this trend mean for my industry and market? |
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Relevance | What opportunity or risk does it pose to my business/organization? |
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1.3 Trend-Analysis
Prioritize Trends for Exploration
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Info-Tech Insight
While the scorecard may produce a ranking based on weighted metrics, you need to leverage the group discussion to help contextualize and challenge assumptions when validating the priority. The room for debate is important to truly understand whether a trend is a fad or a fact that needs to be addressed.
1.3 Trend-Analysis
Discuss the driver(s) behind the trend
Determining the root cause(s) of a trend is an important precursor to understanding the how, why, and to what extent a trend will impact your industry and market.
Trend analysis can be a valuable approach to reduce uncertainties about the future and an opportunity to understand the underlying drivers (forces) that may be contributing to a shift in pattern. Understanding the drivers is important to help determine implication on your organization and potential opportunities.
1.3 Trend-Analysis
Examples of driver(s)
INDUSTRY
Healthcare Exemplar
Macro Trends (Transformative change) | Industry Trend (A pattern of change…) | Drivers (“Why”….) |
Accessibility | Increase in wait times | Aging population leading to global workforce shortage |
New models of care e.g., diversify scope of practice | Address capacity issues |
Understanding the drivers is not about predicting the future. Don’t get stuck in “analysis paralysis.” The key objective is to determine what opportunities and risks the trend and its underlying driver pose to your business. This will help elicit leapfrog opportunities that can be funneled into actionable initiatives.
Other examples…
Dimensions | Macro-Trends | Industry Trend | Driver |
Social | Demographic shift | Global shortage of healthcare workers | Workforce age |
Customer expectations | Patients as partners | Customer demographics | |
Technology | AI and robotics | Early detection of cancer | Patient outcomes |
Ubiquitous connectivity | Virtual health | Capacity | |
Economic | Recession | Cost-savings | Sustainability |
Consumer spending | Value-for-money | Prioritization | |
Environment | Climate change | Shift in manufacturers | ESG compliant vendors |
Pandemic | Supply chain disruption | Local production | |
Political | Regulatory | Consolidation of professional colleges | Operational efficiency |
De-regulation | New models of care | New service (business) model |
1.3 Trend-Analysis
Case Study
Industry
Healthcare
Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Precision Medicine (Genomics)
Precision Medicine has become very popular over the recent years fueled by research but also political and patient demands to focus more on better outcomes vs. profits. A cancer care center in Canada wanted to look at what was driving this popularity but more importantly, what this potentially meant to their current service delivery model and operations and what opportunities and risks they needed to address in the foreseeable future. They determined the following drivers:
- Improve patient outcomes
- Earlier detection of cancer
- Better patient experience
- Ability to compute vast amounts of data to reduce manual effort and errors
- Accelerate from research to clinical trials to delivery
1.3 Trend-Analysis
INDUSTRY
Healthcare Exemplar
Category | Macro-Trends | Industry Trends (Use-Case) | Drivers | Impact to Industry | Impact to Business |
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Talent Availability | Diverse workforce | Aboriginal health | Systemic inequities | Brand and legal | Policies in place |
Hybrid workforce | Virtual care | COVID-19 and infectious disease | New models of care | New digital talent | |
Customer Expectation | Personalization | On-demand care | Patient experience | Patients as consumers | New operating model |
Digital experience | Patient portals | Democratization of data | Privacy and security | Capacity | |
Emerging Technologies | Internet of Things (IoT) | Smart glucometers | Greater mobility | System redesign | Shift from hospital to home care |
Quantum computing | Genomic sequencing | Accelerate analysis | Improve quality of data analysis | Faster to clinical trial and delivery | |
Regulatory System | Consumer protection | Protect access to sensitive patient data | HIPPA legislation | Restrict access to health record | Electronic health records |
Global green | Green certification for redev. projects | Political optics | Higher costs | Contract management | |
Supply Chain | Supply chain disruptions | Surgical strategic sourcing | Preference cards | Quality | Organizational change management |
New pharma entrants | Telco’s move into healthcare | Demand/supply | Funding model | Resource competition |
Sample Output From Trend Analysis
1.3 Elicit New Opportunities
Leapfrog into the future
Turn trends into growth opportunities.
To thrive in the digital age, organizations must innovate big, leverage internal creativity, and prepare for flexibility.
In this digital era, organizations are often playing catch up to a rapidly evolving technological landscape and following a strict linear approach to innovation. However, this linear catch-up approach does not help companies get ahead of competitors. Instead, organizations must identify avenues to skip one or several stages of technological development to leapfrog ahead of their competitors.
“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.”
– Alan Kay
Leapfrogging takes place when an organization introduces disruptive innovation into the market and sidesteps competitors, who are unable to mobilize to respond to the opportunities.
1.3 Elicit New Opportunities
Funnel trends into leapfrog ideas
Go from trend insights into ideas for opportunities
Brainstorm ways to generate leapfrog ideas from trend insights.
Dealing with trends is one of the most important tasks for innovation. It provides the basis of developing the future orientation of the organization. However, being aware of a trend is one thing, to develop strategies for response is another.
To identify the impact the trend has on the organization, consider the four areas of growth for the organization:
- New Customers: Leverage the trend to target new customers for existing products or services.
- New Business Models: Adjust the business model to capture a change in how the organization delivers value.
- New Markets: Enter or create new markets by applying existing products or services to different problems.
- New Product or Service Offerings: Introduce new products or services to the existing market.
1.3 Elicit New Opportunities
INDUSTRY: Healthcare
SOURCE: Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Case Study
Machine Learning Sensor to Sniff Out Cancer
Challenge | Solution | Results |
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Timely access to diagnostic services is a key indicator of a cancer patient’s prognosis i.e., outcome. Early detection of cancer means the difference between life and death for cancer patients. Typically, cancer biomarkers need to be present to detect cancer. Often the presence of these biomarkers is late in the disease state when the cancer cells have likely spread, resulting in suspicions of cancer only when the patient does not feel well or suspects something is wrong. | Researchers in partnership with IBM Watson at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) have created a tool that can sniff for and identify cancer in a blood sample using machine learning. Originally, MSK worked with IBM Watson to identify machine learning as an emerging technology that could drive early cancer detection without the use of cancer biomarkers. But they needed to find specific use cases. After a series of concept prototypes, they were able to use machine learning to detect patterns in blood cells vs. cancer biomarkers to detect cancer disease. | Machine learning was an emerging trend that researchers at MSK felt held great promise. They needed to turn the trend into tangible opportunities by identifying some key use cases that could be prototyped. Computational tools in oncology have the ability to greatly reduce clinician labor, improve the consistency of variant classification, and help accelerate the analytics of vast amounts of clinical data that would be prone to errors and delays when done manually. |
From trends to leapfrog ideas
Additional Examples in the Appendix
Example of leapfrog ideas that can generate opportunities for consideration
Trend | New Customer | New Market | New Business or Operating Model | New Service Offering |
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What trend(s) pose a significant impact on your business? | New stakeholder segment | Enter or create new markets | Adjust the business or operating model to capture change in how the business creates and delivers value | Introduce new digital products, services and experiences |
Virtualize Registration | Empower patients as consumers of healthcare partners | Direct B2C to close gap between providers and patients by removing middle administrative overhead. | 24/7 On-Demand Patient Portal | Leverage AI to develop chatbots and on-demand |
Phase 1: Deliverable
Phase 1 Deliverable
Example of output from phase 1 ideation session
Business Objectives | New Customers (Customer Experience) | New Markets (Health Outcomes) | New Business or Operating Models (Operational Excellence) | New Service Offering (Value for Money) |
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Description: | Focus on improving experiences for patients and providers | Improve quality and standards of care to continually drive better health outcomes | Deliver care better, faster, and more efficiently | Reduce cost per capital of delivery care and increase value for services |
Trends: |
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Digital Opportunities: |
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Phase 2
Evaluate Opportunities and Business Capabilities
Build a better understanding of the opportunities and their impact on your business.
Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 |
Identify New Digitally Enabled Opportunities | Evaluate Opportunities and Business Capabilities | Transform Stakeholder Journeys |
Phase 2
Evaluate Opportunities and Business Capabilities
2.1 CREATE OPPORTUNITY PROFILES | Evaluate each opportunity Some opportunities will have an immediate and significant impact on your business. Some may have a significant impact but on a longer time scale or some may be unlikely to have a significant impact at all. Understanding these trends is an important context for your digital business strategy. | Consider:
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2.2 UNDERSTAND THE IMPACT OF OPPORTUNITIES ON BUSINESS CAPABILITIES | Understand the impact across your value chains Each opportunity has the potential to impact multiple areas of your business. Prioritize where to start acting on new opportunities based on your business objectives and capabilities. You need to assess their impacts across value chains. Does the opportunity impact existing value chain(s) or create a new value chain? | Consider:
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2.1 Build an opportunity profile
Evaluate each opportunity
Discussion Framework:
In your discussion, evaluate each opportunity to assess assumptions, value drivers, and benefits.
Ideas matter, but not all ideas are created equal. Now that you have elicited opportunities, discuss the assumptions, risks, and benefits associated with each new digital opportunity.
Design Thinking
Leverage the guiding principles as the guardrails to limit the scope of your new digital opportunities. You may want to consider taking a design-thinking approach to innovation by discussing the merits of each opportunity based on:
- DesirabilityDesirability: People want it. Does the solution enable the organization to meet the expectations of stakeholders?
- Feasibility
- Viability
Feasibility: Able to Execute. Do we have the capabilities to deliver e.g., the right skills, partners, technology, and leadership?
Viability: Delivers Value. Will this idea meet business goals e.g., cost, revenue, and benefits?
Source: Adapted from IDEO
Transform the Business | |||
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Must Prioritize | Should Plan | Drive Digital Experiences | |
Build Digital Capabilities | High Value/Low Complexity
| High Value/High Complexity
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Low Value/Low Complexity
| Low Value/High Complexity
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Could Have | Don’t Need | ||
Transform Operations | |||
IMPACT ↑ | COMPLEXITY ⇒ |
Source: Adapted from MoSCoW prioritization model
Exemplar: Opportunity Profile
Example:
An example of a template to capture the output of discussion.
Automate the Registration Process Around Admission, Discharge, and Transfer (ADT)
Description of Opportunity: ADT is a critical function of registration that triggers patient identification to support services and billing. Currently, ADT is a heavily manual process with a high degree of errors as a result of human intervention. There is an opportunity to leverage intelligent automation by using RPA and AI. | Alignment With Business Objectives Improve patient outcome Drive operational efficiency and effectiveness Better experiences for patients | Business Architecture This opportunity may impact the following business capabilities:
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Benefits & Outcomes
| Key Risks & Assumptions
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Opportunity Owner VP, Health Information Management (HIM) | Incremental Value Reduce errors in patient identity |
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2.2 Business capabilities impact
Understand the impact on your business capabilities
Each opportunity has the potential to impact multiple areas of your business. Prioritize where to start acting on new opportunities based on your business objectives and capabilities.
You will need:
| Activity: 1-2 hours
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2.2 Business capabilities impact
Start with a value chain analysis
This will help identify the impact on your business capabilities.
As we identify and prioritize the opportunities available to us, we need to assess impacts on value chains. Does the opportunity directly impact an existing value chain? Or does it open us to the creation of a new value chain?
The value chain perspective allows an organization to identify how to best minimize or enhance impacts and generate value.
As we move from opportunity to impact, it is important to break down opportunities into the relevant pieces so we can see a holistic picture of the sources of differentiation.
Exemplar: Prioritized Business Capability Map
In this example, intelligent automation for referral and admission would create opportunity to virtualize repeatable tasks.
Phase 3
ETransform Stakeholder Journeys
Understand the impact of opportunities across the value chain and possibilities of new or better stakeholder experiences.
Phase 1 | Phase 2 | Phase 3 |
Identify New Digitally Enabled Opportunities | Evaluate Opportunities and Business Capabilities | Transform Stakeholder Journeys |
Phase 3
Identify opportunities to transform stakeholder experiences
3.1 IDENTIFY STAKEHOLDER PERSONA | Understand WHO gains value from the value chain To define a stakeholder scenario, you need to understand whom we are mapping for. Developing stakeholder personas is a great way to understand their needs through a lens of empathy. | Consider:
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3.2 BUILD A STAKEHOLDER JOURNEY | Identify opportunities to transform the stakeholder experience A stakeholder or customer journey helps teams visualize the impact of a given opportunity through a value chain. This exercise uncovers the specific initiatives and features that should be considered in the evolution of the digital strategy. | Consider:
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3.3 BREAKDOWN OPPORTUNITIES INTO INITIATIVES ALIGNED TO BUSINESS OBJECTIVES | Unlock key initiatives to deliver value Opportunities need to be broken down into actionable initiatives that can be turned into business cases with clear goals, benefits realization, scope, work plans, and investment ask. | Consider:
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Map Stakeholder Journey
Conduct a journey mapping exercise to further refine and identify value streams to transform.
Stakeholder Journey Mapping | Digital Business Strategy Blueprint | Activity: 4-6 hours Our analysts can guide and support you, where needed.
Key Concepts: Value Stream: a set of activities to create and capture value for and from the end consumer. Value Chain: a string of end-to-end processes that creates value for the consumer. Journey Scenario: a specific use case across a value chain (s). |
Members Engaged
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Deliverable:
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Download the Define Your Digital Business Strategy blueprint for Customer Journey Mapping Activities
3.1 Persona identification
Identify a stakeholder persona and journey scenario
From value chain to journey scenario.
Stakeholder personas and scenarios help us build empathy towards our customers. It helps put us into the shoes of a stakeholder and relate to their experience to solve problems or understand how they experience the steps or processes required to accomplish a goal. A user persona is a valuable basis for stakeholder journey mapping.
A stakeholder persona is a fictitious profile to represent a customer or a user segment. Creating this persona helps us understand who your customers really are and why they are using your service or product.
A stakeholder scenario describes the situation the journey map addresses. Scenarios can be real (for existing products and services) or anticipated.
Learn more about applying design thinking methodologies
3.1 Persona identification
Identify a stakeholder persona
Who are you transforming for?
To define a stakeholder scenario, we need to understand who we are mapping for. In each value chain, we identified a stakeholder who gains value from that value chain. We now need to develop a stakeholder persona: a representation of the end user to gain a strong understanding of who they are, what they need, and their pains and gains.
One of the best ways to flesh out your stakeholder persona is to engage with the stakeholders directly or to gather the input of those who may engage with them within the organization.
For example, if we want to define a journey map for a student, we might want to gather the input of students or teaching faculty that have firsthand encounters with different student types and are able to define a common student type.
Info-Tech Insight
Run a survey to understand your end users and develop a stronger picture of who they are and what they are seeking to gain from your organization.
3.1 Persona identification
Identify stakeholder scenarios to map
For your digital strategy, leverage the existing and opportunity value chains identified in phases 1 and 2 for journey mapping.
Identify two existing value chains to be transformed. In section 1, we identified existing value chains to be transformed. For example, your stakeholder persona is a registration clerk who is part of the Health Information Management team responsible for registering and adjudicating patient identity. | ![]() |
Identify one new value chain. In section 2, we identified a new value chain. However, for a new opportunity, the scenario is more complex as it may capture many different areas of a value chain. Subsequently, a journey map for a new opportunity may require mapping all parts of the value chain. | ![]() |
3.1 Persona identification
Example Stakeholder Persona
Stakeholder demographics Name: Anne Age: 35 Occupation: HIM Clerk Location: Unity Hospital System | Pains What are their frustrations, fears, and anxieties?
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What do they need to do? What do they want to get done? How will they know they are successful?
| Gains What are their wants, needs, hopes, and dreams?
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3.1 Persona identification
Define a journey statement for mapping
Now that we understand who we are mapping for, we need to define a journey statement to capture the stakeholder journey.
Leverage the following format to define the journey statement.
“As a [stakeholder], I need to [prioritized value chain task], so that I can [desired result or overall goal].”
3.2 Stakeholder Journey-Map
Leverage customer journey mapping to capture value chains to be transformed
Conduct a journey mapping exercise to identify opportunities for innovation or automation.
A journey-based approach helps an organization understand how a stakeholder moves through a process and interacts with the organization in the form of touch points, channels, and supporting characters. By identifying pain points in the journey and the activity types, we can identify opportunities for innovation and automation along the journey.
Embrace design-thinking methodologies to elevate the stakeholder journey and build a competitive advantage for your organization.
3.2 Stakeholder Journey-Map
Key Concepts
0. Name: Annie Smith
Age: 35
Occupation: HIM Registration Clerk for Unity Hospital System
![]() | 0.Stakeholder Persona A fictitious profile of a representative stakeholder group that shares a common yet discrete set of characteristics that embodies how they think, feel, and act. 1. Journey (Value Chain) Describes the end-to-end steps or processes that a customer takes across the value chain that groups a set of activities, interactions, touch-points, and experiences. 2. Persona’s Goals Exemplifies what the persona is thinking and wanting across each specific step of their journey. 3. Nature of Activity (see detailed definition in this section) This section captures two key components: 1) the description of the action or interaction between the personas to achieve their goals, and 2) the classification of the activity to determine the feasibility for automation. The type is based on four main characteristics: 1) routine cognitive, 2) non-routine cognitive , 3) routine manual, and 4) non-routine manual. 4. Type of Touch-Point The channel by which a persona interacts or touches products, services, the organization, or information. 5. Key Moments & Pain Points Captures the emotional experience and value of the persona across each step and interaction. 6. Metrics This section captures the KPIs used to measure the experience, process or activity today. Future KPIs will need to be developed to measure the opportunities. 7. Opportunities refer to both the possible initiatives to address the persona’s pain points, and the ability to enable business goals. |
3.2 Stakeholder Journey-Map
Opportunities for Automation: Nature of Activity
Example
We identified opportunities for automation
Categorize the activity type to identify opportunities for automation. While there is no perfect framework for automation, this 4x4 matrix provides a general guide to identifying automation opportunities for consideration.
Info-Tech Insight
Automation is more than a 1:1 relationship between the defined task or job and automation. When considering automation, look for opportunities to: 1) streamline across multiple processes, 2) utilize artificial intelligence to augment or virtualize manual tasks, and 3) create more structured data to allow for improved data quality over the long-term.
3.2 Stakeholder Journey-Map
Example of stakeholder journey output: Healthcare
Stakeholder: HIM Clerks
Journey: Follow-up visit of 80-year-old diabetes patient at diabetic clinic outpatient
Journey (Value Chain) | Appointment | Registration | Identity Reconciliation | Eligibility Verification | Treatment Consult |
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Persona’s Goals |
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Nature of Activity | Priority | Priority | Investigate – ROI | Investigate – ROI | Defer |
Type of Touchpoint |
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Pain Points & Gains |
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Metrics | Time to appointment | Time to enrollment | Patient mis-match | Provider mis-match | Percentage of errors in billing codes |
Opportunities |
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Break opportunities into a series of initiatives aligned to business objectives
Opportunity 1 Virtual Registration | » | Business Goals | ||||
Initiatives | Health Outcomes | Stakeholder Experience | New Models of Care | Operational Efficiency | ||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
| ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | |||
Opportunity 2 Machine Learning Pre-Cancer Diagnosis | » | Business Goals | ||||
Initiatives | Health Outcomes | Stakeholder Experience | New Models of Care | Operational Efficiency | ||
| ✓ | ✓ | ||||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ||
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
FOI = Freedom of Information
Info-Tech Insight
Evaluate if an opportunity will require a series of discrete activities to execute and/or if they can be a stand-alone initiative.
Now you are ready to select and prioritize digital initiatives for business case development
After completing all three phases of activities in this blueprint, you will have compiled a list of new and planned digital initiatives for prioritization and business case development in the next phase. Example: Consolidated List of Digital Initiatives | The next step will focus on prioritizing and building a business case for your top digital initiatives. |
Appendix: Additional Examples
From trend to leapfrog ideas
Every idea is a good one, unless you need one that works.
Additional Examples
Examples of leapfrog ideas that can generate opportunities for consideration
Example 1 Finance | Trend | New Customer | New Market | New Business or Operating Model | New Service Offering |
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What trend(s) pose a significant impact on your business? | New customer segments | Enter or create new markets | Adjust the business or operating model to capture change in how the business creates and delivers value | Introduce new digital products, services, and experiences | |
Open banking | Account integrators (AISPs) | Payment integrators | Data monetization | Social payments | |
Example 2: Retail | Trend | New Customer | New Market | New Business or Operating Model | New Service Offering |
What trend(s) pose a significant impact on your business? | New customer segments | Enter or create new markets | Adjust the business or operating model to capture change in how the business creates and delivers value | Introduce new digital products, services, and experiences | |
Virtual cashier (RFID Enablement) | Big-box retailers | Brick & mortar stores | Automated stores driving new customer experiences | Digital cart |
From trend to leapfrog ideas
Every idea is a good one, unless you need one that works.
Additional Exemplars in Appendix
Examples of leapfrog ideas that can generate opportunities for consideration
Example 3: Manufacturing | Trend | New Customer | New Market | New Business or Operating Model | New Service Offering |
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What trend(s) pose a significant impact on your business? | New customer segments | Enter or create new markets | Adjust the business or operating model to capture change in how the business creates and delivers value | Introduce new digital products, services, and experiences | |
IT/OT convergence | Value-added resellers | New geographies | Train quality-control algorithms and sell as a service to other manufacturers | Quality control as a service |
Case Study: International Airport
Persona Journey Map: International/Domestic Departure
Persona: Super Traveler
Name: Annie Smith
Age: 35
Occupation: Engineer, Global Consultant
Journey Activity Name: Inspired to Travel
Persona’s Goals | What Am I Thinking?
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Nature of Activity | What Am I Doing?
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Type of Touchpoint |
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Key moments & pain points | How Am I Feeling?
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Metrics |
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Opportunities |
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Related Info-Tech Research
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- Access Info-Tech’s Tech Trends reports and research center to learn about current industry trends, shifts in markets, and disruptions that are impacting your industry and sector. This is a great starting place to gain insights into how the ecosystem is changing your business and the impact of these changes on IT.
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Joanne is an executive with over 25 years of in digital technology and management consulting across both public and private entities from solution delivery to organizational redesign across Canada and globally. Prior to joining Info-Tech Research Group, Joanne was a management consultant within KPMG’s CIO management consulting services and the Western Canada Digital Health Practice lead. She has held several executive roles in the industry with the most recent position as Chief Program Officer for a large $450M EHR implementation. Her expertise spans cloud strategy, organizational design, data and analytics, governance, process redesign, transformation, and PPM. She is passionate about connecting people, concepts, and capital. Joanne holds a Master’s in Business and Health Policy from the University of Toronto and a Bachelor of Science (Nursing) from the University of British Columbia. | Kim is a professional engineer and Registered Communications Distribution Designer (RCDD) with over a decade of experience in management and engineering consulting spanning healthcare, higher education, and commercial sectors. She has worked on some of the largest hospital construction projects in Canada, from early visioning and IT strategy through to design, specifications, and construction administration. She brings a practical and evidence-based approach to digital transformation, with a track record of supporting successful implementations. Kim holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechatronics Engineering from University of Waterloo. |
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Jack has more than 25 years of technology and management consulting experience. He has served multi-billion dollar organizations in multiple industries including Financial Services and Telecommunications. Jack also served a number of large public sector institutions. Prior to joining the Info-Tech Research Group, he worked for leading consulting players such as Accenture, Deloitte, EY, and IBM. Jack led digital business strategy engagements as well as corporate strategy and M&A advisory services for clients across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. He is a seasoned technology consultant who has developed IT strategies and technology roadmaps, led large business transformations, established data governance programs, and managed the deployment of mission-critical CRM and ERP applications. He is a frequent speaker and panelist at technology and innovation conferences and events and holds a Master’s degree in Computer Engineering as well as an MBA from the ESCP-EAP European School of Management. | Charl has more than 20 years of professional services experience, “majoring” in digital transformation and strategic topics. He has led multiple successful Digital Transformation programs across a range of industries like Information technology, hospitality, Advanced Industries, High Tech, Entertainment, Travel and Transport, Insurance & Financial Services, Metals & Mining, Electric Power, Renewable Energy, Telecoms, Manufacturing) across different geographics (i.e., North America, EU, Africa) in both private and public sectors. Prior to joining Info-Tech Research Group, Charl was the Vice President of Global Product Management and Strategy (Saber Hospitality Solution), Associate President, McKinsey Transformation Practice, e-Business Practice for PwC, and tech start-up founder and investor. Charl is a frequent speaker at innovation and digital transformation conferences and holds an MBA from the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business, and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pretoria, South Africa. |
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![]() Mike Tweedie Practice Lead, CIO Strategy Info-Tech Research Group | Michael Alemany Vice President, Digital Transformation Consulting Info-Tech Research Group |
Mike Tweedie brings over 25 years of experience as a technology executive. He’s led several large transformation projects across core infrastructure, application, and IT services as the head of Technology at ADP Canada. He was also the Head of Engineering and Service Offerings for a large French IT services firm, focused on cloud adoption and complex ERP deployment and management. Mike holds a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from Ryerson University. | Michael is a leader in Info-Tech’s digital transformation consulting practice. He brings over 10 years of experience working with companies across a range of industries. His work experience includes ~4.5 years at McKinsey & Company where he led large-scale transformations for fortune 500 companies. Prior to joining Info-Tech, he worked for Sabre Corp., an SaaS platform provider for the travel and hospitality sector, leading Product Strategy & Operations. Michael holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and a B.S in Business Strategy from Brigham Young University. |
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Duane brings over 30 years of experiences a healthcare IT leader with a passion for the transformation of people, processes, and technology. He has led large-scale health technology transformation and operations across the enterprise. Before joining Info-Tech, Duane served as the Deputy CIO, Senior Information Technology Director, and Enterprise Architect for both public not-for-profit and private sectors. He has a Bachelors in Computer Science and is a graduate of EDS Operations. He holds certifications in EHR, LEAN/Agile, ITIL, and PMP. | Denis is an IAF Certified Professional Facilitator who has helped organizations and technology executives develop IT strategies for small to large global enterprises. He firmly believes in a collaborative value-driven approach. Prior to joining Info-Tech Research Group, Denis held several industry positions as CIO, Chief Administrative Office (City Manager), General Manager, and Vice President of Engineering. Denis holds an MBA from Queen’s University and a Diploma in Technology Engineering and Executive Municipal Management. |
![]() Jay Cappis Executive Advisor, Real-Estate Info-Tech Research Group | Christine Brick Executive Advisor, Financial Services |
Jay brings over 30 years of experience in management and technology across small and medium enterprises to large global enterprises including Exxon and Xerox. His cross-industry experience includes professional services, commercial real estate, oil and gas, digital start-ups, insurance, and aerospace. Jay has led business process improvements and change management and has expertise in software development lifecycle management and DevOps practices. | Christine brings over 20 years in IT transformation across DevOps, infrastructure, operations, supply chain, IT Strategy, modernization, cost optimization, data management, and operational risk. She brings expertise in business transformation, mergers and acquisitions, vendor selection, and contract management. |
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