REALIZE Blog series Introduction 
 

Introduction 

It appears that digital is increasingly the norm in society, especially with the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI), yet organizations appear to struggle with questions such as: how do we get value from this digital transformation? How can we be successful in achieving our digital aspirations quickly and effectively? What is it, exactly, that we try to achieve? 10 years ago, we started Strategy Alliance to help organizations deal with these questions. We felt we needed our own signature approach to digital transformation and we named it Realize. Lately, we’ve had several requests for more information about Realize. This is why we are starting a series of blogs and this is the first post.  

Digital is the norm 

It seems safe to say that digital is the norm in many aspects of our lives. Both in our personal lives and professionally. At the same time, we also see a counter-movement: the return to analog/ the way we did things before we used the computer for everything. A few small examples will illustrate this point:  

• My music collection went from vinyl to CD to online streaming. My children are now collecting vinyl again. 
  
• Photography went from analog (film-based) to digital, to smartphone based. Now people are talking about the beauty of the imperfection, and we can download camera apps that mimic old film-based cameras.  
  
• In the office, we went from paper processes, to digitized (replace paper with PDF) to fully digital (see e.g.  (Ross et al., 2019)) but we are also discovering that for many processes, the analog version is more effective.  
  
• Formal records keeping has long been a paper process. The archives were a near mystical place where the archivist can find the official documents regarding a specific business deal. In the increasingly digital world, this process has most definitely not improved: data is harder and harder to find as it is scattered over official sources, local drives, and various cloud environments.  
  

When we started Strategy Alliance in 2015, we observed that most (if not all) organizations were undergoing a digital transformation. Now, a decade later, we observe that this is still the case but with a twist: we seem more mindful about where we believe that digital can add value. This more careful approach requires organizations to focus more on (digital) strategy and business design.  

Architecture as enabler for digital transformation 

We believe that digital transformation is a complex effort (see e.g. (Snowden & Boone, 2007)). This means that digital transformation challenges do not have an a priori perfect solution that we can design and then implement. Instead, we need to design a vision, get our bearings, and stay in alignment with our environment as we attempt to realize that vision one step at a time. This requires organizations to sharpen their dynamic capability to sense, seize, and realize their digital aspirations (Teece et al., 1997). 
 
We believe that the discipline of architecture (note that we deliberately do not add a qualifier before the word architecture) provides one of the keys to success. With that in mind, we designed the Realize approach (perhaps “philosophy” is a better term) for digital transformation with architecture-thinking as the backbone.  
 
Strategy Alliance now exists 10 years. This means that the Realize approach also celebrates its 10th anniversary. In the last decade, we have taught many courses based on this approach. We have used it in practice in many different situations. Not much has changed since its inception. If anything, the core has solidified in a robust, theory-backed, and practice-driven approach.  

Blog series 

With more and more people asking for details, we decided to write a series of blogs and share our insights. We are aiming at 15+ blogposts. Some will be longer; others will be shorter. We have structured this as follows:  

• We start by more precisely defining our terms. What is it that we mean by digital transformation? Why do we think it is important? And what exactly do we mean with architecture?  
  
• Then we dive into the philosophical foundations behind the Realize approach as well as present its main structure.  
  
• This is the bases for a more detailed exploration of the various phases and techniques that we use. 
  
• We end the series with posts about related theories and frameworks, as well as with illustrates of how we have used the Realize approach in the real world.  
  

Before we dive into the series, it is perhaps good to know that we believe that “there is nothing more practical than a good theory.” We believe in a good mix of academic rigor and practical relevance when doing our work. Therefore, you will see several references at the end of each post. Perhaps more than you are used to for blogs – yet it will help you to see how our approach is linked to the existing body of knowledge.  
 
The main/corresponding author for the Realize series is Bas van Gils. He can be reached at bas.vangils@strategy-alliance.com. If you have thoughts of questions, then feel free to reach out.  

References 

Ross, J. W., Beath, C. M., & Mocker, M. (2019). Designed for digital: How to architect your business for sustained success. MIT Press. 
Snowden, D. J., & Boone, M. E. (2007). A leader’s framework for decision making. Harvard Business Review, 11(68), 68–76. 
Teece, D. J., Pisano, G., & Shuen, A. (1997). Dynamic capabilities and strategic management. Strategic Management Journal, 18(7), 509–533.