Digital Strategy Innovation : toward product and business model innovation to attain e-leadership

New technological trends like services, big data, and mobile clouds increase the complexity of decision making on information strategy. This paper investigates whether a shift is visible from process-oriented digital technology utilization in digital strategies towards a more balanced and integrated constellation of product, process, and business model innovation. In seven organizations interviews and workshops were held to create a digital strategy. Three focus groups evaluated these digital strategies by applying a digital strategy evaluation model which ties theory and practice into a so-called digital strategy pyramid. The focus groups confirmed that the three contextual IT-trends - services, big data and mobile clouds - can be identified in more than half of the cases. The main observation of this paper is that digital strategies are still mainly process-oriented. The digital strategy pyramid may increase awareness among managers and support them in developing a more holistic and integrated digital strategy. Such strategy would encompass not only process innovations but also product and business model innovations to attain e-leadership. Future research is needed to increase our understanding of how networks of organizations can move from process to product innovation supported by new channelling and business models.