Corporate digital transformation and corporate viability
The digital transformation of many non-digital companies have been accelerated after the Covid-19 crisis. Shifting to a digital business model may unlock significant value but process won´t be easy. In this article McKinsey shows “four common misconceptions that can send companies down the wrong path of digitalization”, providing some recommendation to try to avoid them.
The ambition to become digital has been accelerated during the pandemic as “nearly two-thirds of companies expect that the digitization of their core businesses will be (or already is) essential to remaining economically viable” and only about 8% of companies believe that their current business models will remain viable if they don’t digitize”.
The article provides some recommendations to avoid the 4 most common mistakes done by companies during digital transformation:
- Digital transformation is not just an investment in IT or software; it is a holistic transformation of the business and its operating model and culture. Product managers will have a broader role “bringing business and customer knowledge together with technical knowledge” and ensuring alignment with other functions such as marketing and engineering.
- Digital talent will be necessary but it is not just a question of hiring few executives from Top Tech Companies: Access to digital talent will be key but probably you will be more attractive as an employer hiring people from Tier 2 or Tier 3 digital companies than from Silicon Valley´s Top tech companies. A key element to attract digital talent will be the culture and purpose of your company.
- Gaining digital scale through acquiring small digital player’s won´t be easy. This strategy according to McKinsey has proven to be small accretive in terms of earnings and quite difficult in terms of operating and culture integration.
- Relying on your sales force and the strength of your relationship with the customer may not be enough to face a successful digital transformation. According to McKinsey, it should be considered to create a specific digital channel or “to turn to a parallel go-to-market approach with a lot of autonomy”.
Filter results
According to the ECB, an efficient, secure and integrated payment system would strengthen the international role of the euro and deliver benefits such as lower financing costs, reduced exposure to exchange rate fluctuations and greater protection against sanctions.
According to the IEA one key debate in the EU on financial regulation simplification is whether to explicitly include competitiveness, efficiency or contribution to growth as objectives of the regulatory agencies, following the UK example.
According to IE University’s Center for the Governance of Change, deeper and more integrated financial markets would strengthen the euro’s global role. This requires, among other elements, resilient and interoperable payment systems and completing the banking union.
Partnerships between banks and private credit: The winners will be those that combine bank underwriting discipline, distribution, and customer access with private capital’s appetite for long-dated, illiquid risk, according to Oliver Wyman.
Lucrezia Reichlin (CEPR): A CBDC is not a prerequisite for monetary sovereignty. Confusing money with payments can risk misdiagnosing the problem and misaligning economic policy efforts.
According to the World Economic Forum´s Global Risk Report 2026, geoeconomic confrontation, mis- and disinformation and societal polarization make up the top three short-term risks, while environmental risks dominate in the long term.