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This paper aims to help managers understand digital disruption and implement strategies that will support the digital transformation of companies. Traditional companies need to learn from disruptive ventures and reimagine their business models based on digitalization.

The study is based on multiple case studies of both disruptive startups and established organizations navigating digital transformations.

The authors introduce three levels of digitalization to build a framework of six different value creation stages that result from digitalization. Companies need to create digital products, enhance their processes with digital technology and most important reimagine their business models.

Managers receive guidance on how to deal with digital disruption. They can learn from pathfinding companies that successfully leveraged digital technology to create and capture new value.

The original contribution of this paper is a simple and useful framework to understand and leverage digital disruption.

In a world afflicted with hyper‐competition, dynamic and increasingly rapid market changes, and global economic crises, there still exist, however rare, exceptional companies that have found a way to weather the storm and position themselves for a bright future. This study investigates success factors of top performing companies and drivers of innovativeness and corporate success.

Based on a research study of over 700 European companies, this article explores ways in which many top companies have surged passed their competitors and achieved sustained corporate success. A synthesis of scientific studies, practical experience, and numerous conversations with successful entrepreneurs and senior executives, the results of the project are discussed in order to direct readers' attention to those levers that can help companies create, maintain and strengthen a competitive edge.

The study identifies the pillars of success of high‐performing companies and shows how leadership, entrepreneurship culture, market orientation, core competences and leadership influence innovativeness and corporate success.

Based on a large‐scale empirical study success factors are identified and it is shown how they work together. Examples of successful companies and interviews with senior executives give insights into the secrets of success of top performers.

In every market there are non-consumers – potential customers that withstand an innovation. A common reason is that products targeted to early adopters or the mass market are over-engineered. Established companies usually neglect the laggards in a market. This offers growth opportunities for new entrants. These market niches can be unlocked when products are simplified and adapted to the special needs of the laggards.

Using a short case study from an Austrian producer of cell-phones targeted to seniors, and some other examples, we show how innovative solutions can be developed by targeting to the special needs of laggards in a market.

Technologies usually evolve faster than market needs and established companies, in their efforts to grow and improve profitability, try to innovate faster than their competitors. This often leads to over-engineered products. In many markets there are consumers that withstand these innovative and over-engineered products. A vacuum for low-priced, simple, and easy-to-use solutions emerges. We describe a five-step approach for unlocking these market segments and developing solutions for laggards.

While most companies try to innovate faster than their competitors to defend their market leadership, laggard innovation targets non-consumers in the market. By simplifying over-engineered products and adapting them to the special needs of laggards, new market opportunities emerge. This paper shows how these market niches can be unlocked.

This paper proposes adequate strategies that companies, public administrators and organisations in the education industry can undertake to successfully face the challenges of digital transformation in a regional innovation system. This research considers stakeholders that operate in the Tyrol–Veneto macroregion (the Tyrol, South Tyrol and Veneto areas), a significant case of moderately innovative European macroregion.

This study undertakes explorative research based on a qualitative method. It adopts a place-based multi-stakeholder approach to emphasise the role of three categories of stakeholders (companies, educational system and regional governments) in facing digital changes. More precisely, interviews with 60 stakeholders from the Tyrol–Veneto macroregion were conducted and examined via both text mining analysis and content analysis. First, correspondence factor analysis was performed using IRaMuTeQ software to identify homogeneous subsets of concepts (pillars–i.e., macroareas of strategic actions). Second, two coding phases were implemented using NVivo software to detect strategic fields of action and specific strategic actions undertaken to address the challenges of digital transformation.

The results highlight that digital transformation is a pervasive challenge of regional innovative system that requires a multifaceted set of strategic actions falling into three main pillars. The first pillar, named “culture and skills”, includes three strategic fields of action as follows: digital education, talents and digital culture. The second pillar, named “infrastructures and technologies”, points out the need of information, interaction and artificial intelligence as key strategic fields of action. The third pillar, named “ecosystems”, highlights the importance of investing in medium- to long-term visions, partnerships and life quality. In brief, this study shows that standalone interventions are insufficient to tackle digital transformation from a systemic perspective. Moreover, this study outlines the potential contribution of each category of stakeholder to foster the digitalisation of the Tyrol–Veneto macroregion.

This study highlights the importance of developing digital culture and skills before investing in digital infrastructure and technology in a moderately innovative macroregion. Companies should alter their vision before reconfiguring their business models, invest in smart working and establish contacts with start-ups. In addition, this study recommends that public administration should mainly invest in digital education and partnerships, while, in terms of education and training organisations, it suggests providing digital skills to several cohorts of both students and workers. Policy implications call for the creation of new occasions of cooperation among stakeholders by fostering “table talks” as strategic and policy actions and by making more financial resources available to encourage the digital transformation processes.

The results of this study may be adapted to the characteristics of other regional innovative systems and used as a reference point in terms of the improvement of business, market and local development.