Ahmed Bounfour

Beyond 2020: Network Abundance, Data, and the Future of Organizing

What does the future look like for enterprises post-2020? To address this question, and building on the outputs of the ISD program, this chapter refines the factors that lead to change and disruption in the accelucted enterprise. This includes the emergence of networked abundance that goes beyond the Internet of Things. More generally, this chapter redefines the future as an asset for enterprises; it examines the impact of the various dimensions of digitality and how they will impact the design of the future of enterprises.

From IT to Digital Transformation: A Long Term Perspective

This chapter takes a long term perspective for the use of IT artifacts in companies and organizations. It analyses the semantical shift in the use of digital artifacts, from IT to IS to digitality. It also reviews how IT use has been integrated in the organizational design and the specific role of “organizational fit”. The chapter also reviews three major international programs which developed a historical perspective for the use of IT: the US program (Harvard), the Japanese program (supported by METI) and the French program, as supported by CIGREF. Finally, the chapter justifies how the concept of use, control and innovation are now shifting from companies towards the whole society, and the specific role of social media as new spaces for innovation and appropriation of IT artifacts.

The Emerging Production System

This chapter proceeds to the thematic analyses of the 25 tendencies, with the objective of identifying the key building blocks of the emerging production system in digital spaces. Such a characterization is necessary to the design of future scenarios of the digital enterprise and its related ecosystems. It then identifies the key building blocks for the new production system that underline the digital transformation of firms and organizations. Five building blocks are identified for the new production system: the multiplicity of value creation spaces, the acceleration of links, the contraction of space and time in the coordination of activities and the preeminence of society vis-a-vis the organization. These five building blocks will be presented and argumented in an articulated way.

25 Major Trends

The chapter highlights key IT trends for the digital enterprise. These tendencies will be presented along the key topics for enterprises and their management: business modelling, organization of work, ethical and societal use of digital artifacts, technology and data, regulation. 25 tendencies are identified. They are presented and argumented into details, based on the results of projects, but also taking into account the feedback received from Executives and scholars in different arena.

Acceluction: Stakes, Opportunities and Risks

The acceluction mode is challenging for companies, their executives and their IT managers. The chapter presents the high stakes, opportunities and risks, related to it, in term of business development, resources reallocation and contracting. The chapter analyses into details the different dimensions of acceluction, its fundamental tensions and the related stakes, opportunities and risks. More generally, the chapter develops the arguments towards moving from a management centered on developing “one best ways” to a management centered on “tensions”, underlined by the accelucted mode.

The Acceluction Regime: Its Governance

The acceluction mode calls for an adapted governance for the 2020 digital enterprise. The chapter develops the general principles of governance, especially with regards to the different stakeholders. It specifies the nature of tasks to be achieved, the breakdown of responsibilities as well as the coordination mechanisms. The chapter also details the new role of the digital function within and around enterprises and organizations.

From Lean to Acceluction: Complements or Substitutes?

The Lean production was the key concept proposed by the IMVP program (MIT) of the 1980s. The concept has been later refined into different variants, including the lean management. The Lean production refers to the way OEM optimize the tangible flux within the value chain of the automotive sector, especially between suppliers and OEMs. The research of the ISD program develops a new concept based on the articulation of links between different spaces of value creation. In the digital economy, the key concept is not the reference to the optimizing of transactions (as it was the case with the Lean), but the accelerated production of links, as the acceluction regime refers to it. The chapter delineates why and how we need to shift from the lean production towards a new production system, labelled here acceluction (e.g. accelerated production of links).

Key Topics, Emergencies

Here will take the 2020 as a perspective for analyzing digital transformation of firms and organizations. It is based among other things on “weak signals” identified by the ISD international projects. This chapter presents the program’s main research topics, before considering the elements of emergencies, especially with regards to the key issues of value creation, organizational design, coordination of work and entrepreneurship. The chapter presents into details these emergencies and put them into perspective.

The 2020 Enterprise: Six Contrasting Scenarios

Finding what companies will turn into by the year 2020 is rarely the object of such academic work as that delivered by the ISD programme. The traditional concept of Lean is based on constant improvement of the model through the exploitation of the company’s potential. By 2020, the book suggests it will be replaced by acceluction, which is a wider analysis based on the multiplicity of defined value spaces. This multiplicity also means new tensions such as long term versus short term or company’s own resources versus market resources. The identification of these tensions conveyed by the acceluction regime enables the author to formulate six contrasting scenarios for the design of the 2020 enterprise.

From Data to Digital Assets

Beyond a general discussion of big data as the new frontier for business growth, it is important for firms to develop an analytical approach, notably with respect to digital assets. Based on previous arguments, the chapter proposes a categorization of digital assets, their value and risks, and their mode of approach, taking into account the overall governance structure.