Digitalization capabilities describe an organization’s ability to implement digital solutions based on digital technologies (i.e., handle the process of digitalization). This involves several organizational aspects (Wiesböck 2018). To begin with, organizations need to be able to create and run digital solutions. The evolution from an abstract digital technology to a specific digital solution requires the ability to manage digital technologies. This includes the identification and selection of promising innovative digital technologies (Fichman et al. 2014; Kohli and Melville 2018; Nambisan et al. 2017), a strategic vision on how to use digital technologies as a basis for digital innovations (Carlo et al. 2012; Fichman et al. 2014; Freitas Junior et al. 2016; Kohli and Melville 2018; Lu and Ramamurthy 2011), and the adoption and adaptation of digital technologies to specific needs and situations (Kohli and Melville 2018; Lu and Ramamurthy 2011; Nwankpa and Datta 2017; Wiesböck 2018). Moreover, organizations need to be able to realize technical systems and embed them in existing systems and structures (Bharadwaj 2000; Kohli and Melville 2018; Wiesböck 2018). And finally, they need to be able operate, maintain, and advance digital solutions. Both the realization and embedding and the usage, maintenance and advancement of digital solutions requires the ability to use digital tools, to combine digital and physical resources, and to manage the IT function in general (i.e., IT planning, IT design, IT budgeting, IT project management etc.) (Bharadwaj et al. 1999; Mauerhoefer et al. 2017; Nambisan et al. 2017; Sambamurthy et al. 2003; Wiesböck 2018). 

 

Besides the creation and the operation of digital solutions, organizations need the ability to adapt their existing IT infrastructure and to create new digital infrastructures according to the requirements of digital technologies and digital solutions (Henfridsson and Bygstad 2013; Hess and Barthel 2017; Wiesböck 2018). Digital innovations require flexible, adaptable, scalable, and compatible IT infrastructures that allow the integration of external parties (e.g., customers, service providers, suppliers) in the innovation process (Fichman et al. 2014; Lyytinen et al. 2016; Nambisan et al. 2017) and support the special characteristics of digital technologies such as generativity (Bygstad 2017; Fichman et al. 2014; Henfridsson and Bygstad 2013; Yoo et al. 2010), modularity (Fichman et al. 2014), or convergence (Lyytinen et al. 2016; Yoo et al. 2012). However, they have to be able to manage both the adaptation of their existing IT infrastructures and the development of novel digital infrastructures in order to accommodate digital innovations while, at the same time, securing the stability and functionality of their existing IT systems and applications (Bygstad 2017) – a challenge oftentimes referred to as IT ambidexterity (Gregory et al. 2015; Lee et al. 2015) or bimodal IT (Gartner 2015; Horlach et al. 2016). 

 

What is more, digital innovations – similar to all organizational processes that involve IT resources (Bharadwaj 2000; Lu and Ramamurthy 2011; Nwankpa and Datta 2017) – require a strategic view on the usage and role of IT within organizations (Matt et al. 2015). In the era of digital transformation, organizations need to “rethink the role of IT strategy, from that of a functional-level strategy – aligned but essentially always subordinate to business strategy – to a fusion between IT strategy and business strategy” (Bharadwaj et al. 2013, p. 472) in order to address the effects of digital technologies on organizational functioning. This means that organizations need to be able to formulate an adequate IT strategy that accounts for the specific requirements of digital innovations. And in addition, organizations need to be able to align their IT strategies with their general digital transformation strategies (Bharadwaj et al. 2013; Matt et al. 2015; Yeow et al. 2017). 

 

Sumber: 

Wiesböck, F., & Hess, T. (2018). Understanding the capabilities for digital innovations from a digital technology perspective (No. 1/2018). Arbeitsbericht. 

 Legner, C./Eymann, T./Hess, T./Matt, C./Böhmann, T./Drews, P./Mädche, A./Urbach, N./Ahlemann, F. 2017. „Digitalization: Opportunity and Challenge for the Business and Information Systems Engineering Community.” Business & Information Systems Engineering, 59(6), 301-308.