MSc Management Leading through Digital Disruption Assignment Sample

Introduction

The chosen company for the analysis of the change in digital transformation after the covid-19 pandemic is H and M fashion groups. The report will consist of the company profile, the marketing operation, and the objective for making changes in digital transformation.

Another part will show the model of digital business agility for implementing digital technology to make effective adjustments in digital transformation in the future.

Task 1 The case for change

Company profile and market operation

The chosen company for analysing the digital transformation during lockdown will be H and M fashion clothing brand. It is a Swedish multinational clothing company headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. The demographic segmentation of the company is fast-fashion targeting men, women, children, teenagers, and operating in 74 countries representing the brand globally (Jin and Shin, 2020). It was founded by Erling Persson and has 5000 stores across the globe in November 2019. The revenue of H and M groups was $24.8 billion in 2019.

The market expansion of the brand focuses on customer perspective and provide various option to choose from in stores, on websites, on the digital marketplace, and on social media. H and M group considers the H and M Home, COS, Monki, Wekkday, ARKET, Afound as quality fashion service segmenting as per the target group requirement by the brand (Zhao and Min, 2019).http://MSc Management Leading through Digital Disruption Assignment Sample

The COS brand of H and M groups targets men and women with a special fashion sense that is less trend-oriented but can be worn off the season. COS has 194 stores in 34 countries expanding after the pandemic to 19 online retail markets. Other stores also avail the shoes, bags, accessories, clothes with various ranges of prices focusing on quality products.

The Monki is beyond normal fashion and explores uniqueness targeting young women to believe in an extraordinary fashion that operates in 13 market and now mostly targeting 18 markets online due to digital transformation.

Explanation of digital transformation of the company and objective

The Company has a huge impact on sales due to the covid-19 lockdown and decided to transform digitally as the effect of digitalisation has improved the sales rate of the company. The company closed 250 stores during the pandemic due to social-distancing protocols and transformed online as shoppers’ preferences turned to online buying.

The company sustained a loss of almost 47% in 12 months due to the lockdown. The company dropped to $245 million in 2020. The company however with an online presence to capture the market decided to open 51 online stores increasing 32% profit in 2021 (Claxton and Kent, 2020). http://MSc Management Leading through Digital Disruption Assignment SampleTotal sales in March 2020 dropped to 47% but online the sales were 17% higher. The objective was to transform the stores into online with increasing demand after the global pandemic in 2019.

Task 2 Gaining digital business agility

The digital transformation is revolving across the globe after the covid-19 pandemic and for digital threats identification the digital business agility response quickly to the requirements before the business drops into losses (Wade, 2021).http://MSc Management Leading through Digital Disruption Assignment Sample Digital business agility has three phases consisting of hyperawareness, informed decision-making, and fast execution.

These phases help to understand the threats of digital disruption and monitor the changes for eliminating the risk and grasping opportunities for the new markets.

Figure 1 Digital business agility

(Sources: Wade, 2021)

Hyperawareness: The hyperawareness function is to collect internal and external data from the workforce, customer, operational activities that have a huge impact on the business. With the help of the internet of things, the data of the customer value associated with the sales force, the operational tracking, and assessment of the workforce productivity can be determined by H and M groups.

To enable behavioural awareness the IoT technology can be initiated by the company for determining the hyperawareness regarding the workforce behaviour towards the corporate culture, feedback anonymously (Xu and Koivumäki, 2019). http://MSc Management Leading through Digital Disruption Assignment Sample

The anonymous feedback is an example that can help to build a better workforce environment with digital technology. The IoT can help to communicate the problems easily with retention of the data of the workforce, how the organisation is operating, and also changes to be made in digital transformation for higher productivity. The communication data via feedback can be easily retained with IoT.

Another is the situational awareness that can be enabled with IoT through analysing the marketplace of the company like the customer base of the online marketplace of H and M, competitors, and suppliers tracking devices that will help to identify the threats.

The situational awareness included sensing the changes in advance with digital technology. The IoT will help to sense the changes in operation for identifying the right marketplace for the company (Perkin and Abraham, 2021). http://MSc Management Leading through Digital Disruption Assignment SampleAn example of situational awareness is Dundee precious metal that used data analytics of IoT to collect information for protecting the lives of the workforce.

This company works on metal and human’s life which faces hazardous environment while working needs proper data for bringing changes. So, with the IoT data analytics tracking device the production and safety of the workforce were monitored.

Informed decision-making: Informed decision-making is a process of collecting the data that are relevant to make a firm decision for an organisational regarding the digital transformation. This phase helps to take initiative for making decisions regarding the transformation of the business into digital.

The H and M are planning to expand its business to 5000 online stores. The company with the help of IoT can retain the required information for operating in the online marketplace to make relevant decisions (Hayward, 2021). http://MSc Management Leading through Digital Disruption Assignment SampleAugmented decision-making is a process that helps to collect the analytics and informed decisions to the expertise of the organisation to make the best decision for online decision-making.

This process with IOT will help to make fast decisions for speeding the decision-making cycle of the company regarding the changes through automatic analytics. For example, Proctor and Gambler use this analytics process for making augment decisions with retention of the data of the 50,000 employees. This was related to a work process that provides real-time actionable data insights for making decisions effectively regarding the operation of the work.

The informed decision helps the employees related to analytics that provide a visual image of the situation for making operational decisions in the future related to threats and opportunities. With the help of this informed process, the IoT technology can retain the required data for real task information of digital expansion in the marketplace by H and M.

Fast execution: The fast execution of the work is very important for accomplishing the goal of a company. With information regarding the existing resources and execution process, the company can increase the expansion in the market effectively. The agile talent and agile technology are two aspects that help to execute the process faster.

With IoT, the effective talents that can execute the digital online work faster can be retained (Kettunen and Laanti, 2017).http://MSc Management Leading through Digital Disruption Assignment Sample And the technology of IoT will help to design the resources required for executing the online business of H and M across the globe effectively.

The fast execution can be initiated for digital transformation with the help of the determination of the capability of the existing resource. And with IoT technology, the data of workforce required and technology requirements will be identified for executing the process faster.

Conclusion

Thus, it can be concluded that the company has to adopt the IoT digital technology for the fast execution of the digital transformation. The initiative of 5000 online stores can be accomplished with the implementation of the digital business agility model to identify the problems and resources that will help allot IoT technology for a better decision-making process.

References

Claxton, S. and Kent, A., (2020). The management of sustainable fashion design strategies: An analysis of the designer’s role. Journal of Cleaner Production, 268, p.122112.

Hayward, S., (2021). The Agile Leader: How to Create an Agile Business in the Digital Age. Kogan Page Publishers.

Jin, B.E. and Shin, D.C., (2020). Changing the game to compete: Innovations in the fashion retail industry from the disruptive business model. Business Horizons, 63(3), pp.301-311.

Kettunen, P. and Laanti, M., (2017). Future software organizations–agile goals and roles. European Journal of Futures Research, 5(1), pp.1-15.

Perkin, N. and Abraham, P., (2021). Building the agile business through digital transformation. Kogan Page Publishers.

Xu, Y. and Koivumäki, T., (2019). Digital business model effectuation: An agile approach. Computers in Human Behavior, 95, pp.307-314.

Zhao, L. and Min, C., (2019). The rise of fashion informatics: A case of data-mining-based social network analysis in fashion. Clothing and Textiles Research Journal, 37(2), pp.87-102.

Wade, 2021. Digital business agility. [Online]. [Accessed through]:<https://www.imd.org/research-knowledge/articles/digital-business-agility-and-workforce-transformation/>