A framework for organisations navigating a digital transformation within an ecosystem

In an age of digital disruption, even the most leading-edge companies such as Amazon, Google and Tesla are finding it challenging to continuously remain relevant in the digital era. To address this concern, firms are now embarking on a digital transformation journey, which encompasses everything from the cultural and organisational change required to adopt digital technologies. Digital transformation has been identified as a critical process of survival, with the majority of firms still struggling to implement new digital technologies. Therefore, the author wanted to address this concern by understanding how an Australian company can transform itself within an ecosystem to embrace digital technologies. This research examines a large organisation undergoing a digital transformation, adopting a case study methodology to understand the journey of embracing digital technologies. Within the organisation, the author conducted three individual case studies to understand the digital transformation process from different perspectives. The data emerged from conducting interviews, observations and participant observation to explore the phenomena within the selected case studies. The transcripts from the qualitative case studies were analysed using a thematic analysis, which was an inductive and interpretive process in nature. The framework that emerged consisted of three significant findings; firstly 20 characteristics of a sustainable digital transformation within an Australian context — secondly, a digital transformation process to explain how firms are going through a digital transformation. Thirdly an ecosystem model that explains how firms interact with an ecosystem to implement a digital transformation. These three significant findings will provide an opportunity to understand a sustainable digital transformation process within an ecosystem.