Business Value Recapture Strategy: Why Innovative Companies Succeed at Digital Business Model Transformation

Executives expect their digital transformation initiatives to improve their competitive advantages. Sadly, too few digital transformation projects live up to this expectation. This is because many digital projects fail. Much has been written about why digital transformations fail. For example, some digitalization ventures fail because leaders possess vague aspirations that are primarily operational rather than strategic. Other projects fail because the organizations lack the competencies to implement a complex project successfully. Lastly, some projects fail because of the culture and resistance of the organization's members. However, the articles exploring why innovative companies succeed at digital transformations are still sparse. This is the focus of this article. This article argues that innovative companies successfully deploy digital transformations by strategically selecting, deploying, and orchestrating digital technologies to recapture value. In other words, these companies deploy the Business Value Recapture strategy. This article will contrast the blue ocean strategy with the business recapture strategy to highlight how the latter differs from the former. The article will describe the Business Value Recapture strategy with examples of how innovative companies have deployed it. IEEE