Orchestrating the Digital Transformation Process through a ‘Strategy-as-Practice’ Lens: A Revelatory Case Study

Abstract

Implementing a digital transformation (DT) strategy constitutes an important challenge for most firms. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular must be helped in enacting and managing their DT process. To do so, we aim to answer two research questions: What are the dimensions that define a DT strategy in a SME context? And how do these dimensions contribute to the enactment of a DT process in this context? Using an information systems (IS) strategy-as-practice theoretical lens, combined with an information technology (IT) asset orchestration perspective, we opt for an interpretive case study of an industrial service SME whose characteristics are conducive to a renewed vision of IS strategy in a DT context. From this study emerges a process model that allows us to describe and better understand, in a concrete manner, how a DT occurs and how it is managed through a coherent DT strategy.