Trends and Challenges in Digital Business Innovation

Citation

Elena Buslaeva (2015), "Trends and Challenges in Digital Business Innovation", Foresight, Vol. 17 No. 6, pp. 616-617. https://doi.org/10.1108/FS-12-2014-0087

What trends and challenges define the digital business innovation? This book tries to give answers to a number of important questions, aiming at a better understanding of digital business, its future development and possible difficulties arising. The book “Trends and Challenges in Digital Business Innovation” is undoubtedly very topical, as the mega-trend of digitalization is starting to change the way we do business.

The book is divided into three parts: digital systems trends, digital management and digital innovation. By following this structure the author outlines both technological and managerial aspects of the topic, making his book valuable for IT specialists, managers and scholars alike. The practical use of the book is further enhanced by a number of case studies at the end of each section and by references for further reading material.

The first part on digital systems discusses prominent issues such as big data, cloud computing, mobile and social media technologies and IT consumerization. The book introduces main drivers, characteristics and benefits of these digital systems. The author introduces technical terms which all are properly defined and accompanies the book with insightful tables that make given information efficiently structured but slightly overloaded.

All facts provided indicate a paradigm shift of technologies and digital business methods as a vital need for companies’ and organizations’ success and prosperity, no matter the field of activity. What is also important here is the interconnectedness of the technological trends mentioned: big data, cloud computing and mobile technologies form a single high-tech system. Coupled with competent use of social media and with IT consumerization support, these technologies are able to change current business organization and processes radically.

Also, vital risks actors may face while using new IT tools and methods are introduced – mainly around personal communication in the fields of customer service and human resources. In the long run, the lack of interpersonal contacts may cause negative impacts on company’s image and employees’ relations and motivation for work. Also, technical and infrastructural factors can hamper digital business development, arising concern at all levels in business and politics. The author puts high emphasis on privacy and business identity, too, taking into account the possibilities of hacking, cyber attacks, etc.

In the second part of the book, the author sequentially describes managerial aspects of digitalization and the latest trends in technology management. At this point, digital collaboration models, digital branding and digital governance issues are covered. Furthermore, the author discusses more fine-grained technological solutions, like those dealing with data transfer, business workflows, communication and conferencing both within and outside of the organization. The author explains the rising importance of digital work, collaboration and crowdsourcing.

Concerning business identity and digital brand management, the book points out the issues of privacy and security as the most challenging ones. The author also provides controversial experts’ arguments both in favor and against digital brand management. Examining firms’ options for appropriate and effective governance of digital business and a set of case studies logically concludes the part.

Lastly, the third part of the book aims to deal with digital innovation trends. The first one examines these trends in connection with business models, while the second presents some recent innovative ideas in a form of case studies. Concerning digital innovation trends, the author provides a discussion on business model innovation.

The case studies provided are extremely relevant to the reader of the book and speak about digital technologies. These examples prove that the implementation of methods and technologies presented in this book actually may have effect on different businesses.

To conclude, the book “Trends and Challenges in Digital Business Innovation” is a powerful tutorial the implementation of innovative digital business technologies. However, there is a need for additional reading to understand the full picture of innovative digital environment surrounding us today. The book is written in simple and understandable language but lacks originality and mostly combines other experts’ points of view and replete with citations that makes the author’s contribution dubious.