Digital Kaizen: An Approach for Conducting Large-Scale Digital Transformation Projects

While digital transformation creates opportunities across all industries, many businesses still do not know how to embark on this journey and hesitate to commit resources to such an unclear initiative. By using the interpretive case study method, this paper investigates how Digital Kaizen–a philosophy that focuses on making continuous digital improvements–could guide large-scale digital transformation activities in incremental steps. Our findings show that the adoption of Digital Kaizen has urged the investigated organization to continuously address cross-functional issues that are aligned with their strategic business goals, through implementing incremental digital changes that improve business processes and people engagement. Subsequently, these activities lead to sustainable and scalable digital transformation success that re-defines the organization’s value creation processes and identity. This research suggests a new strategy for conducting large-scale digital transformation, by integrating Kaizen philosophy into digital transformation practices.