DigStratCon: A Digital or Technology Strategy Framework

Abstract

Digital or Technology strategies are the first step of the Digital Transformation. The main risk is that information and assessments not included in the strategy and left to be confirmed and managed at later stages have the potential to negatively affect the successful implementation of the Digital Transformation, therefore negating sought-after business benefits. To mitigate this risk, this article proposes DigStratCon, a Digital or Technology strategy framework that generalises the Digital Transformation, detaching it from its specific functional application, such as marketing, products, Information Technology (IT), and Operational Technology (OT). Therefore, DigStratCon applies to any area within a government, organisation or infrastructure, including Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). DigStratCon defines seven components within a Digital or Technology strategy, specifically (1) market research, (2) target state, (3) current state, (4) roadmap, (5) risks, (6) supply chain, and finally (7) enablers. A qualitative analysis of several United Kingdom (UK) government digital strategies assesses their completeness against the DigStratCon model. On average, UK digital strategies score 6/7 with an innovative and ambitious vision; however, they generally lack a common or standardised structure and wider international benchmark and alignment.

1. Introduction

Digital or Technology strategies are the starting step for a successful Digital Transformation (DT). By following the strategy, stakeholders can rest assured that the promised benefits will be delivered at the estimated price and follow the planned schedule at a minimal risk of deviations. Decision makers are firmly guided by Digital or Technology strategies due to their definition of the overall direction of the asset or organisation, the inclusion of key areas and a broad range of focus areas or objectives, and the prioritisation of initiatives, therefore ensuring alignment with long-term goals. However, Digital or Technology strategies may not deliver the expected benefits due to several risks.

Private wealth creation in periods of swift technological change relies on refining internal technological, organisational, and managerial processes within the organisation (Teece et al., 1997). The identification of new opportunities with an effective and efficient organisation to embrace them has a higher impact on generating private wealth. Moreover, numerous factors determine the competition an organisation faces, including not only the direct rivals but also the economics of related industries, new market entrants, the purchasing power of customers and suppliers, and the threat of new services and products (Porter, 1997). In order to manage competition, the position of the company’s capabilities needs to provide the best defence against competitive forces; the influence of different forces shall be balanced via strategic actions, and the changes in the background underpinning competitive forces must be predicted.

DT is a process for digital technologies to create disruptions that activate strategic responses from organisations to adjust their value generation while managing structural changes and organisational barriers (Vial, 2019). Three main factors are driving the need for DT. Digital advantages from the Internet, mobile phones, and Internet of Things (IoT) support e-commerce initiatives. Competition is changing, becoming more global, intense, and ubiquitous, and is enabled by Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data, and digital platforms. Consumer behaviour is also adapting to digital customer experiences based on online and digital touchpoints, where consumers are more connected, empowered, and active (Verhoef et al., 2021).

There are several theories about strategy formation. The most relevant one, the design school, considers the strategy process as a design to balance external threats and opportunities and internal distinctive competence based on several principles (Mintzberg, 1990). These principles consist of the formation of the strategy as a controlled, conscious process of thought; the responsibility for that control and consciousness as a strategist; the model of strategy formation based on simplicity and informality; the properties of the strategy as unique, explicit, and articulated; and the development from the process of creative design. Digital business strategies are organisational strategies prepared and delivered by leveraging digital resources to create differential business value, fusing technology strategy and business strategy (Bharadwaj et al., 2013). Digital business strategies cover the functional areas of the organisation, such as operations, purchasing, supply chain, and marketing, and their interconnections among capabilities, products, processes, and services.

Digital strategies do not only apply to the private sector but also emerging technologies and innovation in the public sector, covering smart cities, open government, and participation platforms, aiming to accomplish more agile and robust government structures and governance infrastructures via the transformation of services (Gil-Garcia et al., 2014). The purpose of smarter governments is to create a more transparent, efficient, and resilient government for citizens. The Open Government Initiative asked for new methods of collaboration with stakeholders to promote innovation in public service delivery based on a policy instrument named Challenge.gov (Mergel & Desouza, 2013). The initiative implements open innovation concepts developed in the private sector to collaborate on solutions from previously unused problem solvers while leveraging shared citizen knowledge to solve complex social and technical public management issues.

1.1. Digital Transformation Trends

DT started with the digitalisation of analogue services, mostly television and telephony, via analogue to digital converters. This new information in digital format required new transmission networks provided by Information Communications Technology (ICT) and delivered by Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), and Satellite Internet Services (SISs). These common digital protocols for the transmission and storage of information led to system integrations. The next stage consisted of the migration of local servers and computers on-premises to a distributed cloud via datacentres. In addition to migrating the computing power, several “as a service” contractual arrangements also transferred the traditional CAPEX ownership to an OPEX rental based on subscription. This current evolution of the datacentre is driven by Data and Artificial Intelligence to perform complex tasks and processes normally associated with a human. The final stage of DT would be the provision of physical infrastructure and organisational structures to embed AI-driven machines, tools, and robotics to enhance human capabilities, albeit challenges to overcome include ethics, insurance, environmental costs, and social impact. In addition, tokenisation and smart contracts will deliver automatic transactions based on Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) and Quality of Service (QoS) between AI-driven agents.

Further to the above digital evolution, sources of innovation also include customers and suppliers that leverage the adoption of DT from organisations. These digital advancements developed by one organisation prompt competitors and the supply chain to follow suit, developing DT cascades and triggering chain reactions that enhance the resilience of the supply chains due to the additional transparency provided by digitalisation (Xi et al., 2025). Moreover, human capital is a driver of innovation in DT, which positively influences IT innovation and strategic business model development with an overall positive impact on the overall organisation performance (Billi & Bernardo, 2025).

DT costs are becoming increasingly more relevant following Return on Investment (RoI) assessments. The development of digital economies based on DT is optimised by digital platforms that provide high-quality services and implement effective pricing strategies, reducing costs significantly while enhancing operational efficiency and innovation capacity (Huang & Tang, 2025). Technology at any cost does not guarantee positive results. When organisations present financial constraints, the positive impact of the digital strategy on the organisational innovation investment is larger than when institutional investors own a larger proportion of the organisation (Yang & Shen, 2025).

In addition to the economic cost, DT also has environmental implications due to additional energy consumption and emissions. The successful integration of digital leadership with green digital innovation and their combined influence on DT enhances operational efficiency, cost savings, competitive advantage, and brand reputation (Cui, 2025). In fact, sustainable competitive advantage is influenced by the combination of entrepreneurial ecological orientation, DT, and dynamic capabilities based on flexibility, responsiveness, dynamism, adaptability, and integration (Du et al., 2025). Furthermore, the right combination of the different elements of DT leads to a positive environmental performance (Ribeiro et al., 2025).

Finally, trends of DT in governments and the public sector in general include completely paperless information systems to provide the most user satisfaction for their citizens and civil services (Kitsios & Ioannou, 2025). The goal of the European Union is to pursue a citizen-centric governance of Digital Transformation by enabling a federated data system that is corporate-driven, economic-oriented, and GDPR-compliant in a Digital Single Market (Calzati & Loenen, 2025). However, this approach prioritises private actors, economic value, and individuals as consumers are left out, excluding societal and collective dimensions of Digital Transformation, such as social inclusion, digital sovereignty, and environmental sustainability.

1.2. Digital Transformation Risks

The strength of strategies is when they constitute the strategic case of an overarching business case. If a strategy is produced as an independent deliverable, then it needs to include the remaining elements of a business case, namely the economic, commercial, financial, and management cases to ensure value for money, viability, affordability, and delivery, respectively. Digital Transformation risks arise from the lack of relevant specification on their scope, values and goals, management, governance, funding, change management, regulation, technical architecture, cybersecurity, and complexity within the digital strategy.

The scope of Digital Transformation ranges from rewiring existing processes to redefine client and supplier relationships beyond current boundaries (Cennamo et al., 2020). In addition, distinct functions of the asset or organisation could commission independent digital strategies, such as real estate, marketing, product, Information Technology (IT), and Operational Technology (OT), generating potential gaps and overlaps in scope and project interfaces. The effect is to the detriment of final business objectives and unnecessary additional costs, inefficient operations, and decision-making, respectively.

An unclear vision and unfeasible goals lead to complete failure due to a waste of resources on unachievable results and ambiguous directions (Baslyman, 2022). Digital or Technology strategies focused on technology without alignment to the business values and goals lack well-defined and proven benefits, hindering the increase in revenue at the customer level or increasing its operating costs and acting as a detriment to user or customer experience, therefore obstructing competitive advantage, growth, profit, and business value.

Despite significant large-scale investments, management errors can make Digital Transformation fall short of expectations in terms of service relevance and scalability, resulting in market decapitalization (Budagov & Sukhova, 2020). The lack of agreed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and defined milestones triggers misalignment between activities. Furthermore, if stakeholders are not engaged before the initiation of digital strategies, sufficient project resources are not allocated and testing and commissioning are not considered; the delivery of the Digital Transformation will be delayed, over budget, and misaligned with the strategy objectives.

Boards are normally focused on finance and legal policies for corporate governance, leaving Digital Transformation unaccountable (De Haes et al., 2020). The unclear definition of roles and responsibilities in the ownership, management, and maintenance of the new digital systems, assets, and associated services defined in the Digital or Technology strategy develops a lack of governance and accountability during the whole life cycle of the assets.

Financing constraints cause mediation between Digital Transformation and green innovation in organisations where the full benefits and main features, such as scalability, are inhibited (Wen, 2024). Undetailed capital investments without scheduled cash flows and funding agreements generate Return on Investment (ROI) uncertainty as costs cannot be accurately accounted for, and the delivered benefits are measured against them.

Digital Transformation programmes fail to accomplish their goals due to inefficient change management, including inadequate management support, lack of clearly defined and achievable objectives, and ineffective communication (Bellantuono et al., 2021). The existing culture and structure can present barriers and impede the Digital Transformation effort instead of fostering an environment that promotes change, innovation, pushing boundaries from comfort zones, and continuous learning. Siloed departments, functions, and teams working towards different goals hinder communication and collaboration. This issue also applies to leadership misalignment and inconsistent vision and support. Users can be voluntarily resistant or involuntarily unable to change due to a lack of onboarding or training, therefore impeding user adoption. Moreover, users in an organisation can be unaware that there are already available digital tools, applications or features to enhance their productivity.

Regulatory frameworks lack the ability to adapt to the increasing pace of technological developments, generating regulatory risks due to the unknown type of regulatory change that will be established in response to digital innovation (Hafnawi, 2021). Currently, there is no single regulatory framework generally accepted for Digital Transformation and Industry 4.0, nor are there any universal international conventions. Instead, there are specific regulations for point applications.

Legacy servers and digital architecture reduce data interoperability, particularly at organisations with complex software systems, therefore increasing the costs of Digital Transformation as users need to develop more complicated processes to interact with technical systems (Cao & Iansiti, 2022). The lack of interoperable and straight access to data, applications, and systems reduces the functionality of digital applications, where non-standardised digital technology and data via proprietary and closed protocols, software, architecture, and standards disable seamless integrations.

The success of Digital Transformation depends on developing proactive and adaptive cybersecurity measures as digital technologies are increasingly incorporated into business operations (Saini et al., 2024). Potential and new threats such as phishing, ransomware, and insider attacks incur a digital loss of service and access to valuable data, leading to substantial reputational and financial damage.

The progression of the relationships between the system’s architecture and organisational structures after Digital Transformation has increased in complexity beyond human cognition due to extended functionality, larger system integration, and constant development (Lakemond et al., 2024). Technical incompatibilities, system fragmentation, and large volumes of data affect efficient operations.

1.3. Research Question and Proposal

The research question presented by this article is whether Digital or Technology strategies provide enough information to mitigate risks in Digital Transformation. These risks include scope, values and goals, management, governance, funding, change management, regulation, technical architecture, cybersecurity, and complexity.

In addition, this article proposes DigStratCon as a Digital or Technology strategy framework that mitigates the presented risks in Digital Transformation by structuring the content and information. DigStratCon generalises the Digital Transformation, detaching it from its specific functional application, such as real estate, marketing, products, or Information Technology (IT). Therefore, DigStratCon applies to any area within a government, organisation or infrastructure, including Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI). DigStratCon defines seven components within a Digital or Technology strategy, specifically (1) market and competition research of current applications of digital and technology, equivalent initiatives, standards and regulations, (2) target state or digital vision, (3) current state of the digital landscape, (4) roadmap based on prioritisation based on benefits versus cost and dependencies, (5) risk assessment based on their probability and impact with respective effective mitigations, (6) supply chain that covers digital solution, service, and asset providers, and finally (7) enablers such as project management, target operational model, and change management.

To answer the research question, a qualitative analysis assesses whether digital strategies provide enough information to reduce Digital Transformation risks based on the DigStratCon framework. Specifically, the selected digital strategies are from ten departments of the UK government, publicly available and retrieved from their respective websites.

This article is structured into the following: Section 2 provides the research background and literature review for several digital directives, regulations, frameworks, and the different elements of the DigStratCon framework. Section 3 defines the DigStratCon model and its different components. Section 4 presents a qualitative analysis of ten departments of the UK government against the DigStratCon model. Section 5 suggests further considerations based on the external consultants versus internal resources, artificial versus human intelligence, cost versus quality, tick in the box versus value added, and strategy versus design. Finally, Section 6 shares the conclusions of this research.

2. Research Background

This section presents the literature review for UK and European digital directives, regulations, and other proposed digital strategy frameworks. Additionally, this section includes specific research background whose main topic specifically corresponds to a component of the proposed Digital or Technology strategy framework, DigStratCon: (1) market and competition research, (2) target state or digital vision, (3) current state of the digital landscape, (4) roadmap, (5) risk, (6) supply chain, and (7) enablers such as project management, target operational model, change management.

2.1. Digital Directives and Regulations

There are several European digital directives and regulations. Directive (EU) 2025/25 (European Union, 2024) covers the use of digital tools and processes in company law, promotes trust and transparency in companies, and improves the reliability of company information to establish more connected public administrations. Directive (EU) 2022/2555 (European Union, 2022a) establishes a common cybersecurity regulatory framework based on cooperation, information sharing, supervision, and enforcement to enhance cybersecurity in the EU by strengthening cybersecurity capabilities, introducing cybersecurity risk management and compulsory reporting in critical sectors. Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 (European Union, 2022b) of the Digital Services Act (DSA) creates a safer online environment for consumers and organisations by defining consumer rights, responsibilities for online platforms and social media, reporting, and oversight, promoting innovation, growth, and competitiveness. Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (European Union, 2016) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) protects the individuals’ information after its processing by the private and public sectors, enabling individuals to control their personal data and establishing independent supervisory authorities to monitor and enforce compliance.

The UK has a couple of sovereign acts for digital strategies, where the British GDPR is adopted from the European Regulation. The UK Data Protection Act (UK Parliament, 2018) covers the processing of personal data, the definition of competent authorities for law enforcement, the implementation of the law enforcement directive, and the role of the Information Commissioner. The UK Data (Use and Access) Act (UK Parliament, 2025) regulates access to customer and business data, the determination and verification of individuals, the recording and sharing of information, privacy and electronic communications, and the establishment of the Information Commission.

2.2. Digital Strategy Frameworks

There are distinct theoretical frameworks already proposed for digital strategies and Digital Transformation in organisations, businesses, governments, assets, and products.

Table 1. Qualitative analysis of DigStratCon sections other proposed digital strategy frameworks.

Framework	Topic	Research	Target State	Current State	Roadmap	Risks	Supply Chain	Enablers	Similarity
Schallmo et al. (2019)	Organisation	Included	Included	Included	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded	0.57
Saleh and Mamdouh (2020)	Organisation	Included	Included	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Included	0.57
Lipsmeier et al. (2020)	Organisation	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Included	0.43
Matt et al. (2015)	Organisation	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded	Included	0.29
Korachi and Bounabat (2020)	Organisation	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Included	0.43
Sebastian et al. (2017)	Organisation	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Included	Included	0.57
Holotiuk and Beimborn (2017)	Business	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Included	Included	0.57
Yucel (2018)	Business	Included	Included	Included	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Excluded	0.57
Zaoui and Souissi (2020)	Business	Excluded	Included	Included	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Included	0.57
ElSawy et al. (2013)	Business	Included	Included	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Included	Excluded	0.57
Becker and Schmid (2020)	Business	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded	Included	0.29
Levy et al. (2022)	Business	Included	Included	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Included	Excluded	0.57
Pingali et al. (2023)	Business	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded	Included	0.29
Serrano (2023)	Asset	Excluded	Included	Included	Excluded	Included	Included	Included	0.71
Serrano (2024)	Asset	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Included	Included	Included	Included	0.71
Bhattacharya and Momaya (2021)	Asset	Included	Included	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Included	Included	0.71
David et al. (2023)	Government	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Included	0.43
Gong et al. (2020)	Government	Excluded	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded	Included	0.29
Hinings et al. (2018)	Government	Excluded	Included	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded	Included	0.43
Nylen and Holmstrom (2015)	Product	Included	Included	Included	Excluded	Excluded	Excluded	Included	0.57
Albukhitan (2020)	Product	Excluded	Included	Included	Included	Excluded	Included	Included	0.71
Issa et al. (2018)	Product	Excluded	Included	Included	Included	Excluded	Included	Included	0.71
Average	N/A	0.36	1.00	0.50	0.45	0.18	0.41	0.82	0.53

summarises the comparison between the components proposed by other digital strategy frameworks against DigStratCon. The term “Included” denotes that the DigStratCon component has been considered with a value of 1.00; instead, if the concept has been ignored, the term corresponds to “Excluded” with a value of 0.00. Similarity measures the proportion of shared components between the framework and DigStratCon over a maximum value of one, where “1.00” corresponds to complete similarity, while “0.00” corresponds to no similarity. The closest similarity is 0.71, corresponding to digital strategies for assets and products, which implies that five out of seven components are included. The average of 0.53 represents that half of the components have been considered, demonstrating the universality and sector-agnostic nature of DigStratCon. The target state (1.00) is always provided in the digital strategy frameworks, where Enablers (0.82) and current state (0.50) are equal to or above the average 0.50. Roadmaps (0.45), supply chain (0.41), and research (0.36) are below the average. Finally, risks (0.18) are the least included in the digital strategy frameworks. These academic frameworks focus primarily on the experimental definition of digital strategy frameworks rather than their practical implementation and delivery for an organisation or government in a competitive environment. Therefore, risks and market are normally missing where the supply chain needs further consideration. This finding is reinforced with the fact that asset and product digital strategies are most correlated with DigStratCon, rather than organisation, business, and government.

2.2.1. Organisation

An integrated approach for the development of a digital strategy is formed of six phases and four generic digital strategies (Schallmo et al., 2019). The six phases include an external strategic analysis for the influencing factors from the macro- and micro-environment, strategic forecasting from relevant environmental factors, internal strategic analysis of the company and its different divisions within the digital context, strategic principles to identify current and future fields of action, strategic options with evaluation and selection, and strategy formulation based on the strategic option selected. The four generic digital strategies cover the product provider, service provider, product platform operator, and service platform operator. The macro-environment includes political, economic, sociocultural, technological, ecological, and legal dimensions, whereas the micro-environment covers potential new entrants, rivalry among competitors, substitution products and services, bargaining power of customers, and bargaining power of suppliers. A strategy framework for the Digital Transformation of any organisation comprises three stages with four core dimensions, namely positioning, business model, dynamic capabilities, and transformation roadmap (Saleh & Mamdouh, 2020). The three stages cover the identification of Digital Transformation drivers from internal and external factors and consumer analysis. The development of a vision-based mission and objectives based on position, business model, and dynamic capabilities, and the Digital Transformation roadmap covering customer aspects, organisational arrangements, and business case offers a transformation approach and technology considerations.

A process model for the development of digital strategies consists of eight components, specifically digital guiding principles, digital culture, digital competencies, strategic direction, Digital Transformation of products, services and value creation, IT/OT architecture, creation of value networks, and measurement and organisation (Lipsmeier et al., 2020). An analysis of Digital Transformation strategies includes their components, success patterns, procedural factors, responsibilities, and the final integration of Digital Transformation strategies into organisations. These components divide Digital Transformation into four areas, covering the application of technology, changes in the creation of value, changes in the structure of the organisation, and financial considerations (Matt et al., 2015). An integrated methodological framework for the Digital Transformation strategy is based on IT governance elements, namely business strategic planning, strategic planning, organisational structure, reporting, budgeting, investment decisions, steering committee, prioritisation process, and reaction capacity (Korachi & Bounabat, 2020). In addition, the framework contains processes, goals, good practices, metrics, and evaluation parameters based on KPIs and Digital Transformation maturity levels.

Two digital strategies, specifically customer engagement and digitised solutions, guide the Digital Transformation based on an operational backbone and a digital services platform (Sebastian et al., 2017). The customer engagement strategy creates a seamless, omnichannel experience to facilitate customers to order, inquire, pay, and receive support consistently. The digitised solutions strategy aims to reformulate the value proposition of the organisation by the integration of products, services, and data. The operational backbone includes the technology and business capabilities to enable the efficiency, scalability, reliability, quality, and predictability of core operations. The digital services platform includes the technology and business capabilities to deliver the prompt development and implementation of digital innovations for business agility and rapid innovation.

2.2.2. Business

A digital business strategy framework is composed of eight critical success factors: sales and customer experience, organisation, culture and leadership, capabilities and HR competencies, foresight and vision, data and IT, operations, and partners (Holotiuk & Beimborn, 2017). Sales and customer experience covers the seamless integration of offline (physical) and online (digital) channels. Organisation includes the agility to reallocate resources and swift reorganisation. Culture and leadership create and foster a digital mindset with a digital agenda. Capabilities and HR competencies reinvent value chains and challenge the status quo, where employees identify value. Foresight and vision establish a clear vision with future positioning for the Digital Transformation. Data and IT use data and information from a central source. Operations create data-driven and digitally automated processes for higher automation. Partners utilise network effects with open systems and partner integration. An intelligence framework model for digital business strategies is based on four properties and seven dynamics (Yucel, 2018). (1) Layered to enable decision-making for business, strategy, policy, and functional objectives, (2) qualitative analysis to model uncertainty with hypotheses, (3) sensitivity analysis, and (4) strategy evaluation and characterisation methodologies. In addition, the dynamics for digital disruption include threats, opportunities, digital marketplaces, current business model, transformed business model, digital business strategy, and the Digital Transformation strategy.

A framework for a strategic Digital Transformation based on building a digital business by the digitisation of core and business processes to develop new digital products and service offerings is composed of several dimensions (Zaoui & Souissi, 2020). These dimensions cover organisational structures for processes and skills; informational for data and information management; environmental for ICT integration; security for IT, data, and humans; quality for the products and services; financial for the investment and Return on Investment; cultural for the values and behaviours shared by a community; innovation for technology design, technology processes, and ICT management; and participative for collaboration and interaction of any stakeholder and user. Four themes to guide digital business strategy in a Digital Transformation strategy framework consist of the scope, scale, speed, and the sources of business value creation and capture (ElSawy et al., 2013). Scope includes the digitisation of products and services, the relationship with firms, industries as customers or supply chains, IT infrastructures, and the external environment. Scale covers rapid digital deployment or disbandment as a strategic dynamic capability, the network effects within multisided platforms, information abundance, alliances, and partnerships. Speed includes product launches, decision-making, supply chain orchestration, and network formation and adaptation. Sources of value creation consist of information, multisided business models, coordinated business models in networks, and the control of digital industry architecture.

Digital strategies for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Large-Sized Enterprises (LSEs) are structured based on the aim of Digital Transformation, the application of new technology, the creation of future value, the value added from changes, the future organisational structure, and the financing of digitalisation (Becker & Schmid, 2020). Furthermore, a transformational digital strategy in an SME covers the threat of new entrants, bargaining power of buyers, bargaining power of suppliers, threat of substitute products, intensity of competition, market differentiation, customer segmentation and targeting, brand positioning, pricing, and communications (Levy et al., 2022). The digital readiness of emerging markets’ business is conceptualised as technological sensemaking, enterprise agility, and transformational implementation (Pingali et al., 2023). Technological sensemaking assesses the strategic capability for the implementation of new technology or the configuration of existing technology to adapt to market changes, including the understanding and interpretation of technological change, the elicitation of actionable insights, and the impact on business performance. Enterprise agility measures the speed of change management at which businesses adapt to market disruptions and respond to competitive advantage. Transformational implementation integrates digital technology entirely into the business to support strategic changes. The five-factor model of digital readiness is composed of (1) leadership in terms of millennial leadership and legacy employees, (2) strategic focuses on operational efficiencies, rural market expansion, and millennial customers, (3) resources, including information availability and financial flexibility, (4) customers covering expectations of personalised experience and readiness for digital technology, and (5) markets, including the availability of specific platforms and institutional support.

2.2.3. Asset

An asset of the omni-management framework for assets consists of the micro-management of services for the atomic functional functions (Serrano, 2023). These functions include users, spaces, management, and technology. The standardisation of different assets or infrastructure supports the macro-functionality of the assets delivered by Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), Decentralised Autonomous Organisations (DAOs), and their generated new business management, with effects pertaining to the role of intermediaries in asset management. A Digital framework to deliver megaprojects or digital strategies is based on a systems engineering methodology embedded into the business case (Serrano, 2024). Specifically, requirements management, interface management, systems architecture, the supply chain landscape, and Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Safety (RAMS) targets are included in the business case to provide a wider technical vision of the project or strategy. This approach reduces the risks of megaprojects or strategies composed of complex systems of systems in their earliest stage, when financial decisions based on cost estimations are made. A strategy framework for Digital Transformation of the architectural, engineering, construction, and operation and maintenance value chain consists of three pillars (Bhattacharya & Momaya, 2021). A simple, actionable and agile strategy is centred on four areas, namely the identification of objectives, risk management, coordinated and team approach, and the achievement of value across the value chain. The strategy based on dynamic capabilities is directed toward strategic change at the organisational and individual unit levels. The strategy of transformation is on the move, combining change and continuity in new business models and new services.

2.2.4. Government

Adoption strategies of digital technology for local government follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta Analyses (PRISMA) via the people, processes, and technology framework (David et al., 2023). This framework includes the technology utilised for local government services, opportunities, challenges in implementing digital technology, and the final strategies to deliver digital technology. People strategies cover the building platform for public participation, employee skills, and a positive mindset of decisionmakers. Process strategies include recognising the roles of players, clear aims and procedures, appropriate regulation, and accepting user input. Technology strategies involve understanding the effect of technology, technology preparedness, and convenience adoption. A conceptual model for Digital Transformation in governments combines the diamond, the technology enactment, and enterprise architecture frameworks (Gong et al., 2020). The model covers technology, process, structure, and people areas, targeting flexibility via policy and technology throughout the digital progression within hierarchical and bureaucratic organisations. The diamond framework provides a conceptual view of the organisation as a system with four elements (actors, structure, tasks, and technology) to analyse the impact of technology on organisational changes. The technology enactment framework examines the effects of organisational structures and institutional arrangements on technology implementations in the public sector. The enterprise architecture framework develops an architecture description of a system based on domains, layers, views, matrices, and diagrams to make systemic design decisions on components and long-term decisions for new design requirements. Digital innovation and transformation from an institutional perspective is divided into three digital institutional arrangements: organisational forms, institutional infrastructures, and institutional building blocks (Hinings et al., 2018). The digital organisational form is a digitally enabled configuration of practices, structures, and values that constitute the core of the organisation. The digital institutional infrastructure includes standardised digital technology that enables, constrains, and coordinates numerous actions and interactions in sectors and industries. The digital institutional building blocks represent premade and customisable modules formed of digital technology for running or creating an organisation.

2.2.5. Product

A managerial framework for digital technology and digital innovation for product and service portfolio covers five areas (Nylen & Holmstrom, 2015): (1) user experience including usability, aesthetics, and engagement, (2) value proposition covering segmentation, bundling, and commissions, (3) digital evolution scanning including devices and channels, (4) behaviours and skills for learning, roles, and teams, and finally (5) improvisation in space, time, and coordination. A Digital Transformation strategy for manufacturing products consists of six stages: the generation of a Digital Transformation vision and objectives, the assessment of the organisational capability for the Digital Transformation via digital maturity levels, the design of the end user and employee user experience, the assessment and selection of solutions and vendors, the creation of an implementation roadmap, and a change of the organisation culture and infrastructure (Albukhitan, 2020). Digital Transformation faces several challenges, including traditional analogue processes, resistance to change, legacy business models, limited automation, budget limitations, lack of relevant knowledge, rigid company structure, and security. A framework to guide Digital Transformation in Industry 4.0 consists of capability maturity and alignment to support manufacturing companies in developing their products (Issa et al., 2018). There are four maturity levels: no Industry 4.0 or only ad hoc, departmental level or isolated silos, organisational level or cross-departmental, and inter-organisational level or cross-value chain/supply chain partners. The activities in the framework cover the establishment of the consultancy team, the assessment of the digitalisation, the benefit versus implementation effort analysis, the generation of ideas for use cases, and the estimation of the impact associated with the use cases.

2.3. Market and Competition Research

One of the options for the assessment of the market and competition research is its development as part of the digital strategy, although this activity is usually included in the marketing strategy of the organisation. The effect of digital marketing strategies on the buying behaviour of customers in online shopping is analysed via the rough set theory and decision tree rules (Forghani et al., 2022). These strategies include search engine optimisation, search engine marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, affiliate marketing, pay-per-click, and recommender engine and email marketing. The five rules governing customer behaviour include cultural, social, individual, psychological, and marketing factors. A hybrid knowledge automation system calculates, reasons, and advises specific digital marketing strategies from various digital marketing strategy models, integrating several decision support methods based on Monte Carlo simulation and fuzzy logic (S. Li et al., 2011). Monte Carlo simulation captures the stochastic behaviour of the variables that influence digital marketing decision-making. Fuzzy logic models the uncertainty of the input and strategic options, where “if-then” rules model and automate planning knowledge, analytical models, and guidelines.

The dynamics of the evolution and adoption processes of digital strategies for public digital platforms in digital marketing depend on competitive market pressures and organisational readiness (Su et al., 2021). The evolution processes include the pressure from costs, performance and brand, response, effect path for startups, rapid growth, and mature organisations. Likewise, the adoption processes cover the evolutionary path of validation and cloning and the foresight path based on single, linear, and diverse capability readiness. The impact of digital platforms on the performance of new startups and the influence of the digital strategy is based on broader market outreach, cost effectiveness, and network effect (Usman & Sun, 2023). The broader market outreach covers the growth of the market and the adaptation of the current business network, such as organisations, clients, suppliers, and competition, to gain new customers. Cost effectiveness maximises current resources to reduce labour costs for commercial processes, where business costs decrease as efficiency increases. The network creates strong circular feedback after the net worth of a product, service, or platform increases following an expansion in users.

A digital customer experience strategy includes management practices to provide direction and is divided into preservers, transformers, and vanguards (Klaus, 2014). These practices are composed of five dimensions, namely definitions, scope and objectives, governance and management, policy development, and challenges. Preservers define customer experience management as an extension or development of existing service delivery practices while assessing its effectiveness via traditional customer outcome measures. Transformers acknowledge that customer experience is connected positively to the financial performance of the organisation. Vanguards present a clear strategic model of customer experience management, impacting all areas of the organisation, developing adequate business processes and practices, and integrating functions into customer touch points to ensure consistency across their own business and their partners.

2.4. Target State or Digital Vision

The digital vision or target state is articulated following well-defined and structured processes composed of several stages. Digital Transformation strategies are divided into two pillars: the vision and the readiness of a business model for digital operation (Tekic & Koroteev, 2019). These two dimensions create four generic Digital Transformation strategies: disruptive, business model led, technology led, and proud to be analogue. These strategies differ in the digital vision, primary drive and target of the transformation, leadership style, creativity, and entrepreneurial attitude between employees, risks and challenges, consequences of potential failure, and available methods for enhancement. A model of alignment for a digital vision comprises five stages determined by combinations of sensing, seizing, and reorganising capabilities (Canhoto et al., 2021). Sensing detects changes and learns quickly. Seizing addresses opportunities and captures value in the marketplace by the mobilisation of resources, the embracement of opportunities for innovation, and the execution of actions. Reorganising alters the company processes, leverages resources differently, accesses new resources to solve gaps, and releases resources to generate optimal arrangements. These five phases exhibit different visions for technology applications (ad hoc versus integrated) and methodologies for the adoption of technology (reactive versus purposeful). (1) Passive acceptance uses limited digital technology, almost reluctantly, driven solely by external pressures. (2) Connection applies ad hoc, but voluntary, digital tools for both internal and external activities. (3) Immersion uses digital technology with proficiency and a growing dependency between business and technology, with some steps toward integration. (4) Fusion applies digital tools extensively, deployed to meet business objectives with a large alignment of the business to the digital strategy. (5) Transformation intentionally uses digital technology to transform the business.

Four visions for digital strategies, namely structural separation, strategic outsourcing, centralisation of decision-making, and the threat of digital disruption, are the inputs of a predictor for a digital service innovation (Setzke et al., 2023). This predictor applies a fuzzy set qualitative comparative assessment based on consistency, raw and unique coverage, solution consistency, and coverage. Structural separation covers the distinction between innovation related activities and established organisational units. Strategic outsourcing measures the dependency of an organisation on external partnerships to develop service innovations. Centralisation of decision-making includes the different levels within an organisation where power resides. The threat of digital disruption analyses the threat from new/established market entrants that apply digital technology to the core business of an organisation. Digital Transformation visions and strategies for digital innovation based on AI are evaluated following an analytic hierarchical process and four criteria, namely subject, environment, resource, and mechanism (Kim & Kim, 2022). Specifically, the subject is composed of the Chief Executive Officer, core talent, technical development, and business strategy. Environment consists of compliance and regulation, industry competition, market digitalisation, and social responsibility. Resource covers technology, big data infrastructure, capital, and investment. Mechanism includes coordination, learning, selection, and change supervision.

2.5. Current State of the Digital Landscape

Some digital strategies prioritise the current state of the digital landscape as the starting point of the Digital Transformation. This is due to the organisations being heavily dependent on their current technologies, processes, management or having already started a Digital Transformation. Digital strategies continuously update and incorporate new learnings and insights from previous and ongoing implementation projects, like the physical transformation of an asset. The implementation of a digital strategy requires a balance between top-down and bottom-up approaches, where agile methodologies of trial and error are better suited than exhaustive analytical upfront planning processes (Chanias et al., 2019). To meet these requirements, a digital strategy is divided into seven phases focused on the underlying processes, strategising activities, and current status: recognition of the need for Digital Transformation, setting the stages, initial formulation, preparation for the implementation, starting the implementation, establishment of a working mode, and next enhancements. A digital strategy for the city of Manchester promotes digital inclusion, industries, and innovation (Carter, 2013) based on its current technology landscape. This Digital Transformation is then enabled by the city’s leadership, investment in new digital infrastructure and services, and an extensive exemplar of projects and activities. The transformational digital infrastructure includes access networks for businesses and citizens via fibre to the premises and wireless technology, digital hubs to connect these independent networks, and backbone networks to connect the digital hubs to the Internet while hosting applications on services. Other initiatives include smart energy, smart health, and wellbeing.

The roles of high reliability, organisational identity, and value in Digital Transformation contrast in terms of (1) tensions between innovation and transformation while maintaining the current reliable, secure, and efficient operations, (2) dependency on established internal resources against recruiting external resources, and (3) complexity versus transparency (Polakova et al., 2023). Failures or suboptimal outcomes of a Digital Transformation are due to current misalignment in the IT workforce perception, which induces perception of a threat followed by self-protective behaviour. A model for Digital Transformation evaluates the relationship between digital, corporate, and business strategy stages against the current organisation leadership and management structure (Porfirio et al., 2021). The management variables cover several leadership approaches, characterised by the current perception of the autonomy provided to employees, the coherence of managers’ actions towards the mission of the organisation, and the effectiveness of the strategic management process. The Digital Transformation stages include the relevance of the digital strategy to corporations, the business strategy, the level of innovations set by the digital strategy, and the value of investment in digital strategies.

2.6. Roadmap

Roadmaps in digital strategies are based on the priorities an organisation sets to achieve from the vision, available funding, and their dependencies against the current state. A high-level roadmap for Digital Transformation consists of three dynamic IT capabilities, digital platform, IT management, and IT knowledge management, which allow IT units to dynamically update their capabilities against variable business requirements and frequent technology releases (T. Li & Chan, 2019). This roadmap assists organisations in extracting business value from IT infrastructure and supports organisational sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring activities for the procurement, deployment, integration, and reconfiguration of IT resources to meet business objectives. Dynamic digital platform capability generates new value creation activities, enhances operational efficiency, enables access to external resources and capabilities, and supports participation and engagement, such as open innovation. Dynamic IT management capability designs and executes changes in processes that control IT resources and practices in alignment with the goals and priorities of the organisation. Dynamic IT knowledge management capability facilitates organisational IT technical knowledge creation, transfer, and retention; the deployment, coordination, and innovation of IT resources and practices; and the technical expertise and understanding of business staff to use IT in carrying out or refining daily operations.

Business process management implements Digital Transformation roadmaps based on six requirements: digital strategy, agility, digital expertise, IT innovation, collaboration, and openness (Fischer et al., 2020). These requirements are then mapped into the six elements of a business process management roadmap: strategic alignment, governance, method, IT, people, and culture. Based on these elements, three digital strategies for implementation are modelled as communication/learning, unification/optimisation, and automation/certification to cover six objectives: governance and compliance, management support, interaction model, education, tool support, and conventions and guidelines. The digital activities of strategists are represented in four stages of an open strategic roadmap, namely the broadcasting, soliciting, collaborating, and actioning stages. The broadcasting stage applies IT to describe the content of the proposed strategy and make it visible to stakeholders and the community while starting engagement (Morton et al., 2020). The soliciting stage generates and evaluates the content of the strategy with reference to strategic plans while seeking views, thoughts, ideas, and deliberations from the community. The collaborating stage covers face-to-face discussions with the community to negotiate and refine the strategy while capturing emergent ideas. Finally, the actioning stage implements the acquired learning into the formal strategy and reprioritises the strategy via updates from promotion campaigns while defining a jointly developed membership model.

2.7. Risk Assessment

Although risk assessments follow a well-established methodology based on the reduction in the probability and the mitigation of severity, there is specific research on several approaches to reduce the risks of Digital Transformation. The role of a sustainability strategy in a digital business strategy versus its financial performance and its capability to reduce sustainability risks is based on management and operational capabilities (Ukko et al., 2019). This sustainability strategy reduces the risk between managerial capability and financial performance; in contrast, it increases the risk among financial performance and operational capability. An alignment process for a highly dynamic digital strategy reduces the risks of Digital Transformation based on an analysis of a Business-to-Business journey to enable the Business-to-Customer digital strategy (Yeow et al., 2018). This alignment process consists of several standardisable actions for the sensing, seizing, and transforming capabilities of the organisation that iteratively reconfigure and refine the resources to address changes in the external environment and internal issues. The sensing capacity focuses on opportunity identification and assessment, the seizing capacity covers the decisions and design of organisational components to capture opportunities, whereas the transforming capacity addresses the reconfiguration and redeployment of resources.

Three governance strategies that countries apply to reduce the risks derived from digitalisation, such as sustainability, social, and environmental impact, while promoting private sector innovation are divided into laissez faire, precautionary and preemptive, and stewardship with active surveillance (Linkov et al., 2018). The laissez-faire governance approach requires limited government intervention or regulation and mostly depends on an industry-driven and open market to recognise suitable strategies and manage the processes of digitalisation. The precautionary governance approach utilises regulation to confirm that the safe use of the strategy has been demonstrated and to prevent exposure to irreversible risk while mitigating short-term risks after the revision of emerging and future threats and common themes. The stewardship governance approach supports the promotion of the digital economy while enforcing the government’s prevention and mitigation of sustainability risks from future threats. Digital technology supports organisations to enhance their resilience during a crisis based on a resilience capability model at the entrepreneur, organisational, and entrepreneurial ecosystem levels (Khurana et al., 2022). The entrepreneur level begins resilience enhancement after understanding the crisis and its associated risks and then identifies relevant digital technology. The organisational level builds up this resilience as a dynamic capability, repurposing organisational resources. The entrepreneurial ecosystem develops the capabilities to have a transformational role via seamless integration with the organisation.

2.8. Supply Chain

There are several strategies for digitalising the supply chain and digitally embedding them into an organisation. An approach to obtain competitive advantages in the digital supply chain includes Digital Transformation, smart technology, and relationship performance (Nasiri et al., 2020). Digital Transformation aims for the digitalisation of everything that can be digitalised, the collection of large amounts of data from different sources, the creation of stronger collaboration between the different business processes, and the enhancement of customer interfaces. Smart technology aims for all devices to be programmable, uniquely identified, alert to and able to adapt to changes within their environment, transmit and receive messages, record and store all information, and identify with other devices, places, or people. Relationship performance evaluates internal and external collaboration over the last three years. Digital strategy developments for manufacturing supply chains are divided into three types: top-down, bottom-up, and mixed approaches (RiHo et al., 2023). These three types are composed of several dimensions to include the company characteristics (revenue size and digital strategy adoption) and criteria (number of suppliers, product type, and market demand). Top-down planning includes the strategic intentions of the top management, whereas bottom-up learning leverages practices and processes at an operational level.

The smart supply chain is delivered by Digital Transformation for flexible operational performance in uncertain environments with customers and suppliers across upstream and downstream relationships (Valle et al., 2022). This supply chain flexibility is defined by three topics, namely sourcing, delivery, and manufacturing, where information capabilities consist of three dimensions: Digital Transformation strategy, digital base technology, and digital front end technology. Base technology covers IoT, cloud, big data, AI, and blockchain, whereas front end technology includes robotics, 3D printing, simulation, and augmented reality. Digital strategies focused on services’ transformation processes that create value, therefore affecting relationships and power structures in supply chains (Mosch et al., 2021). These five strategies for industrial suppliers to keep access to critical resources while obtaining power within a digital services supply chain are based on a power constellation between supplier versus Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)-dominated relationships and physical versus digitalised product service systems. Specifically, these strategies cover (1) the influence of digitalised product service systems in the knowledge of critical components, (2) the facilitation of specific investments for the exchange of data, (3) the commitment in the relationship of traditional service offerings, (4) the use of empowered end users to influence demand through the supply chain, and (5) the downstream movement in OEM unserved markets.

Three generic digital strategies for shopping malls, namely digital awaiter, digital data gatherer, and digital embracer, include retailers and shoppers, the role of digital technology, and their combination with physical devices into omnichannel strategies as supply chains (Frishammar et al., 2018). These strategies are depicted from a constellation between the visionary role, type, and services of digital technology versus the centre of gravity in generating value, the supply side (retailers), and the demand side (shoppers). Digital awaiters use mature digital technology that is commonly accepted. Digital data gatherers apply increasingly sophisticated and complex digital technology to collect large amounts of big data from shoppers in the physical world to enable retailers the opportunity to optimise their business or operations. Digital embracers prioritise digital technology to generate advanced digital services to create their advanced digital services and offerings. The value creation in digital business strategies is measured via three value networks in the supply chain: vertically integrated, loosely coupled, and multisided platform (Pagini, 2013). Vertically integrated organisations have full and centralised control of their own value chains via vertical alliances. Loosely coupled organisations present more leadership, relevance, and power obtained from their central position in the value network structure. Multisided platform organisations lead cross-boundary industry disruptions, new business models, and innovative services in a common infrastructure platform, reducing distribution, transaction, and search costs.

2.9. Enablers

Project management and Target Operating Models (TOMs) are quite structured frameworks based on several standardised components; however, change management and user behaviour in Digital Transformation present more variability due to their human factor. A set of relevant organisational capabilities for managing Digital Transformation is divided into seven relevant themes (Konopik et al., 2022). (1) Strategy and ecosystem capabilities relate to the organisational strategy and ecosystem. (2) Innovation thinking capabilities cover the organisational need for innovation targeting open innovation and cocreation. (3) Technology capabilities include new disruptive technology. (4) Data capabilities provide the management, security, and capitalisation of data. (5) Operational capabilities consist of regular business and value creation activities. (6) Organisational design capabilities cover the design of the organisational structures and process. (7) Leadership capabilities provide organisational management and culture. Governments are investing large resources to develop an information society and close digital divides between regions based on broadband, Information Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure, e-government services, e-health, access to public sector information, intelligent transport systems, smart energy, e-inclusion, ICT for SME, and ICT for rural agriculture for their citizens, resulting in policies that include broadband infrastructures, the application of ICTs in the public sector, the digitalisation of SMEs, and digital inclusion (Reggi & Gil, 2021). A digital strategy aligns these policies and investments with the actual needs of local users while considering the factors that influence the strategic decisions between funding, investment, and strategy.

There are several structural, cultural, and social barriers against digital government, where digital champions need to navigate institutional frameworks to strategically deliver digital government solutions (Wilson & Mergel, 2022). Structural barriers consist of technological infrastructure, institutional reliance on outdated technological platforms, technological resources, technical capacity and skills, human and financial resources, legal frameworks, privacy and security, rigid and siloed organisational structures, lack of organisational leadership, and outdated procurement processes. On the other side, cultural barriers cover political and management support and leadership, institutional habits and traditional processes, absence of engagement with and demand from users/citizens, risk aversion, hierarchical decision-making, organisational vision and strategy, perceived legal barriers, organisational practice, finances, lack of awareness/strategic thinking, unclear definition of benefits, political alignment, workload and competing priorities, deficiency of evidence base, and ethical concerns. The role of proactiveness, risk-taking, innovation, and relational capital in employee performance to achieve the digital strategy goals in a Digital Transformation is analysed via a four-dimensional scale based on management, infrastructure, networking, and development (Ritala et al., 2021). Management capability plans and orchestrates digital resources to make strategic decisions aligned with the goals and vision of the organisation. Infrastructure capability identifies the human and technological digital assets and resources to assess the benefits of digital investments. Networking capability determines the speed and effectiveness of accessing, utilising, and exploiting external digital resources beyond the organisational boundaries. Development capability deploys digital resources to meet the current or emerging business, operational, and service requirements of the organisation.

The contribution of the Chief Digital Officer and its actions in the Digital Transformation within an organisation is modelled based on two variable design parameters (Singh et al., 2020). On the vertical dimension, the Chief Digital Officer is vertically embedded in the structure of the organisation, following the Digital Transformation strategy and the responsibility for activities. On the horizontal dimension, the coordination mechanisms align employees working on Digital Transformation with formal and informal actions within different units at different hierarchical levels. The rational and managerial practices of senior executives in a Digital Transformation, including their changing talent management role and the needs of individual employees, are categorised into four activities (Fernandez et al., 2022): drive business change, master fluid and loose organisational structures, master talent complexity, and prioritise learning. These four activities are further divided into twelve subtasks: (1) switching from digital leader to business leader, (2) developing and promoting business experience in the digital function, (3) staying updated on new developments, (4) encouraging and promoting dynamic and variable organisational structures, (5) integrating a mixture of formal and informal, internal and external, and semi-permanent and temporary structures, (6) promoting mobility within the organisation, (7) managing new workforce needs for autonomy, purpose, ownership, and flexibility, (8) ensuring the required talent to digitally transform the business, (9) integrating and leveraging diverse teams, (10) deepening the talent pool, (11) making training a priority, and (12) committing to personal permanent learning. The effective Digital Transformation of organisations is based on recent skills covering AI, IoT, nanotechnology, robotisation, augmented reality, and digitalization (Sousa & Rocha, 2019). These main digital learning contexts include participants, learning themes, learning processes, and learning facilitators via laptops, tablets, and smartphone applications.

Digital Transformation requires skills and influence that only senior leaders possess (Westerman et al., 2011). Key steps for senior executives to steer their organisation include envisioning the digital future for the organisation, focusing on the how, the investment in Digital Transformation initiatives that enable the organisation to take advantage, and leading the change from the top.

3. DigStratCon: A Digital or Technology Strategy Framework

This article proposes DigStratCon as a Digital or Technology strategy framework that includes (1) market and competition research of current applications of digital and technology, equivalent initiatives, standards, and regulations, (2) target State or digital vision, (3) current state of the digital landscape, (4) roadmap based on prioritisation based on benefits versus cost and dependencies, (5) risks, (6) supply chain, and finally (7) enablers including project management, target operational model, and change management (Figure 1).

Based on the gap identified within the research background, the innovation provided by DigStratCon consists of its generalisation of the Digital Transformation in seven stages, detaching it from specific functional applications, such as real estate, assets, marketing, products, IT or OT. Therefore, DigStratCon applies to any area within a government, organisation or infrastructure, including Data and AI. By following a standardised structure in the digital strategy, stakeholders are guaranteed that risks are mitigated, areas are holistically considered, and relevant information is easily identified by the next stage of the Digital Transformation, thus promoting digital and knowledge independence. In addition, this approach supports the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) approach in an agile methodology.

3.1. Market and Competition Research

Market and competition research is a vital component of a digital strategy as it provides insights into the current digital trends, user needs, business opportunities, competitor strategies, and market landscape. This enhanced commercial understanding supports the development of informed decisions based on benchmark analysis. A useful approach is the assessment of previous and current issues affecting business and competition and how technology has supported in addressing them, rather than directly recommending technology to be deployed in the market. Every organisation or asset is different; therefore, equivalent issues are normally solved via different solutions. In addition, technology evolves quite rapidly, therefore generating product obsolescence at the hardware and software levels.

Several methods provide research intelligence via the gathering of qualitative and quantitative data. These include direct online surveys to target audiences, interviews, focus groups, and workshops; desktop analysis of information retrieved from the Internet, such as case studies or blogs; paid research reports by research and advisory organisations specialised in conducting them; and even hiring employees from the competition.

The data gathered from these methods is subsequently analysed and tailored to the organisation or asset requirements for trend identification, customer preferences, market opportunities, and regulatory updates. This research outcome identifies not only the strengths and weaknesses of the market and the competition based on comparable metrics but also the organisation conducting the assessment, where weaknesses are then translated into opportunities. The impact of new technology on the customers, suppliers, partners, and competitors is also assessed. These gained insights inform the digital strategy supporting the business objectives and requirements.

3.2. Future State or Digital Vision

The definition of the future state in a digital strategy for an asset or organisation involves envisioning where the asset or organisation wants to be in terms of digital capabilities and functionality. This clear and precise vision includes long-term goals that align with the overall business strategy, such as environmental or sustainability, supported by Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) based on outcomes, rather than deployment progress, and measurable metrics like time or energy reduction, revenue generation or customer satisfaction. The alignment between business values, goals, and technology delivers proactiveness in market opportunities and responsiveness against rapid market changes while staying ahead of the competition.

User-centric digital strategies include simple user interfaces where users, including employees, are included in the process of developing the vision of the digital strategy vision. Another benefit of a user-centric approach is that users understand the benefits of the change.

The future state objectives are divided into smaller initiatives or use cases, according to an expandable Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound (SMART) definitions to provide clear direction. Furthermore, stakeholders covering leadership, team members, and external partners are consulted in the process to ensure their alignment and buy-in while avoiding scope gaps and overlaps.

Use cases relevant to the organisation or asset are enabled by digital systems, which in turn are dependent on the digital architecture or framework that hosts the software and information. These dependencies, therefore, generate a subset of foundational initiatives and use cases that require prioritisation for a successful orchestration of the digital strategy. Direct access to data, applications, and systems enhances digital applications while enabling cross-functional teams to innovate and improve continually. Modular technology architecture and Commercial Off-the-Shelf (COTS) applications with specific customisations, both at the cloud or premise level, reduce complexity and improve efficiency.

3.3. Current State

The assessment of the current state of a digital strategy involves a thorough analysis of the organisation or asset’s existing digital infrastructure, with its associated management and utilisation processes. For a digital strategy, this includes the revision of the current systems, assets, platforms, applications, and capabilities in terms of functionality, efficiency, scalability, and integrations.

For enhanced user experience, current touch points such as websites, mobile apps or Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs), control panels, and data connectors are evaluated in terms of their performance and applicability. Feedback from customers, user engagement, and direct stakeholder evaluations identify the strengths and weaknesses of the current digital use cases, applications, and architecture. These current performance metrics are collected, analysed, and recorded to benchmark the effectiveness of the new digital applications and justify Return on Investment (ROI) challenges.

In addition to the current technology stack, its related asset management and processes are assessed and documented. This evaluation includes user team structures, workflows, resource allocation, asset manager, and maintainer. Process inefficiencies and resource constraints are identified and their potential impact recorded in a risk register.

3.4. Roadmap

The digital roadmap is an essential tool to guide and align stakeholders throughout the Digital Transformation, ensuring collaboration while reducing conflicts. The different use cases are prioritised based on the quantitative and qualitative assessment of benefits and value to the organisation, including their alignment to the business strategy versus their cost of procurement, installation, and maintenance. The technical dependencies and integrations between use cases are also accounted for to inject flexibility, agility, and dynamism into the roadmap, which enables possible future inclusions of changes from the evolution of new technological advances and lessons learned during the implementation of the digital strategy.

Gap analyses are conducted based on the target and the current state, and these gaps are accounted for via the use cases in the roadmap. Gaps include technical and organisational capabilities and skills to achieve the full benefits of the Digital Transformation. There are several tools to support the gap analysis elicitation, such as the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) methodology. Strengths refer to the resources of an organisation that provide an advantage against the market, whereas weaknesses refer to the elements that induce disadvantages from the current state. Opportunities are features that can be exploited to the organisational advantage, while threats are characteristics that can cause issues for market and competition research, respectively.

The roadmap is detailed with specific timelines, milestones, dependencies, key performance metrics, cash flows, resource allocation, and the Responsibility, Accountability, Consultation, and Information (RACI) matrix for each digital initiative. These RACI roles in the project, system, and asset levels are not limited to individuals but also include service providers, organisations or departments. This additional information, rather than a single list of use cases, ensures the successful orchestration of the Digital Transformation in alignment with the different functional units of the organisation and assets. Digital Transformation balances upfront Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) cost with ongoing Operational Expenditure (OPEX) cost based on service fees, cloud subscriptions, and maintenance to keep the digital infrastructure up to date and secure with the associated training and support. Capital investments follow scheduled cash flows for funding allocation and budget agreement for the programme, with contingencies for unexpected costs.

3.5. Risks

Digital Transformation is vulnerable to several risks that are identified, assessed, and mitigated. These risks include every threat from the people, processes, and technology dimension that has the potential to impact the successful implementation of a digital strategy. Once the risks have been identified via workshops or other research tools, the probability and impact are evaluated to generate a risk profile based on the likelihood and severity of the consequences. Solutions that minimise the probability of the risks while mitigating their impact are included in the roadmap. The residual risks are continuously monitored, and the effectiveness of the mitigation techniques is reviewed.

Risks normally include technology obsolescence, integration compatibility, gaps and overlaps in projects and use cases, organisational siloes, conflicting interests, funding for unplanned expenses, and availability of human and skilled resources.

Compliance with regulations, sustainability, directives, and standards between different countries and regions is also incorporated into the risk register. This includes data privacy and protection at data collection, transmission, and storage to ensure compliance with data governance policies. Potential changes in regulation, intellectual property infringements, the use of patented products, and antitrust monopolistic practices are also considered based on consultation with legal experts. Additional technology also brings cybersecurity risks that are efficiently mitigated via assessments and treatment plans to protect against data breaches and cyberattacks. Elicited cybersecurity requirements are fed into the overall strategy at the early stages.

3.6. Supply Chain

The supply chain has a fundamental role in successfully implementing digital strategies and delivering the Digital Transformation. The supply chain can provide outsourced downstream services such as project, cost or design management as well as upstream digital assets comprising the manufacturing of hardware and software devices. Therefore, the mapping of the supply chain of different services and assets aligns with the digital strategy. Once the procurement, installation, commissioning, and handover stages are accomplished, the supply chain can also provide services covering the maintenance and management of the digital assets that are accounted for.

3.7. Enablers

Enablers of digital strategies involve several essential methodologies that facilitate a successful Digital Transformation. These methods primarily include project management, change management, and Target Operation Models (TOMs). Without these Enablers, the application of technology will not directly integrate with the different functions and processes of the organisation or asset.

Project management regularly monitors the progress of the implementation of the digital strategy via its roadmap, releasing the budget when required, tracking risks, and making adjustments to the schedule as required. Project management also addresses its governance of the strategy to establish the rules, policies, and controls to ensure compliance and effective implementation. Stakeholders are engaged and informed of the vision, reasons, and benefits of the Digital Transformation. Delivery progress is continuously monitored and ready to adapt to deviations, where individuals are held accountable.

Change management supports the organisational transition to the future state, focusing on the skills, competencies, and culture that will successfully implement the digital strategy and drive its adoption among the different teams and users. Other elements to be considered include training, communication, and the address of any possible resistance to change. Change management covering users and processes is communicated and instructed to avoid misunderstandings and promote adoption.

The TOM includes the definition of the new teams, processes, asset capabilities, and functions in alignment with the target operational state of the organisation to fully achieve the benefits of the Digital Transformation. The TOM defines and aligns the hierarchy, roles, responsibilities, reporting structure, workflows, and procedures covering the management and operation of the new digital assets delivered by the digital strategy while achieving operational efficiency.

4. Qualitative Research in Current Digital Strategies

Based on the previous research background and proposed sections for a Digital or Technology strategy, DigStratCon, this section provides a qualitative assessment of alignment between ten digital strategies of the UK government against the DigStratCon model. These strategies have been chosen based on the following criteria: their large coverage as the UK government department consists of 24 ministerial departments, a broad vintage range, from 2012 to 2025, and their public availability on the Internet. These strategies are referenced accordingly in the reference Section. The information within this section has been extracted from these strategies. When the DigStratCon concept has been at least considered, the respective section is marked as “Provided” or scored as 1.00 in the table; otherwise, if the concept has been completely missed, the mark corresponds to a “Lacking” mark or 0.00 score. Similarity measures the proportion of shared components between the UK government digital strategy and DigStratCon over one, where “1.00” corresponds to complete similarity, whereas “0.00” corresponds to no similarity.

The qualitative analysis for each component of the ten digital strategies is provided in Appendix B to demonstrate clarity and transparency of the scores while removing evaluator bias. The following subsections summarise the findings of the qualitative assessment of the ten UK government strategies. Although DigStratCon defines an open and universal digital strategy, the limitations of the qualitative analysis of this research are its scope, which is purely based on the public sector domain. In addition, the assessment has been conducted using binary coding rather than a multi-scoring approach based on DigStratCon requirements provided in Section 3, which is summarised in a template in Appendix A.

Table 2. Qualitative analysis of DigStratCon sections in UK government digital strategies.

Strategy	Year	Research	Target State	Current State	Roadmap	Risks	Supply Chain	Enablers	Score	Similarity
DfT	2012	Lacking	Provided	Provided	Provided	Lacking	Provided	Provided	5/7	0.71
DWP	2012	Lacking	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	6/7	0.86
DCMS	2017	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	7/7	1.00
DfE	2019	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	7/7	1.00
MoD	2021	Lacking	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	6/7	0.86
HMG	20121	Lacking	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	6/7	0.86
DBEIS	2022	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	7/7	1.00
DDCMS	2022	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	7/7	1.00
HO	2024	Lacking	Provided	Provided	Provided	Lacking	Lacking	Provided	4/7	0.57
MoJ	2025	Lacking	Provided	Provided	Provided	Provided	Lacking	Lacking	4/7	0.57
Average	N/A	0.40	1.00	1.00	1.00	0.80	0.80	0.90	6/7	0.84

confirms an average similarity of 0.84, where four digital strategies are completely similar (1.00) to DigStratCon. The two most dissimilar digital strategies (0.57) are still above the half similarity benchmark (0.50). Target state, current state, and roadmap are always considered (1.00), whereas Enablers (0.90), risks (0.80), and supply chain (0.80) are above the half value benchmark (0.50). Research (0.40) is the most lacking component. Overall, this assessment proves the maturity of the UK government to deliver Digital Transformations; however, there is a tendency not to directly embed the supply chain into the digital strategy, where risks and mitigations tend to be found at later stages of the Digital Transformation. This has the potential to develop into programme delays and cost overruns. Moreover, research is normally missing, leaving readers uncertain as to whether the Digital Transformations are innovative or just average. This lack of a global or international benchmark may trigger secondary impacts on the overall productivity of a nation. From a temporal perspective, the similarity of the digital strategies peaked from 2017 to 2022, where the two most recent final strategies present the worst similarity score (0.57).

4.1. Market and Competition Research

Market and competition research is one of the areas that can be easily enhanced. Benchmark analyses against other departments in the UK or equivalent departments in other countries are not included. Far-reaching technological trends with the potential to enhance productivity in specific processes and use cases are not considered, like the use of AI for automated decisions or test summarisation. Finally, an assessment of current research in innovative technology by organisations or universities is not presented.

4.2. Target State or Digital Vision

Digital visions or target states are normally very detailed, based on several use cases, with the ambition to progress digitally. Although digital directions such as cloud technology, standardisation, open protocols, and standards are normally included, the architecture of MVPs for gradual enhancement is not provided. In addition, the definition of KPIs for each use case or initiative is normally missing, leading to two issues. The progress of the Digital Transformation will be measured by technological installation or deployment rate rather than end user efficiencies, and the final difficulty to precisely evaluate the sought-after RoI.

4.3. Current State of the Digital Landscape

The current state of the digital landscapes is included, albeit not with enough detail to make the next stage of the Digital Transformation independent. The current performance of existing systems and processes is not provided, making it difficult for relevant KPIs to be established. The provision of current processes, technologies, service providers, system integration, and assets in an appendix supports the next stage to provide more accurate price estimations while reducing risks.

4.4. Roadmap

Roadmaps include relevant use cases and initiatives; however, the dependencies between these use cases are generally not defined. Additional relevant details, such as their cost for detailed cash flows and prioritisation based on their benefits, are generally missing. Furthermore, a RACI for each case supporting ownership, governance, and accountability on the Digital Transformation is not included.

4.5. Risks

Risks have been considered, and specific use cases have even been proposed to mitigate them, such as regulation, planning, and cybersecurity. Yet, there are no comprehensive risk registers, and a process that assures risks have been exhaustively identified, with actions to minimise their probability and mitigations to reduce their impact.

4.6. Supply Chain

Supply chain considerations are included, although specific details covering which use cases or services will be delivered in-house or by third-party service providers support the supply chain to efficiently allocate resources to the Digital Transformation.

4.7. Enablers

Enablers are widely provided but not properly included. Specific sections on project management, costs, funding allocation, governance, change management, and the TOM provide more clarity.

4.8. General Comment

The analysed digital strategies do not follow a common structured methodology. Readers cannot be guaranteed that the concepts and information provided are exhaustive; therefore, providing a holistic digital strategy is necessary. Moreover, specific information cannot be easily extracted in dedicated sections, except for the vision and roadmap sections, thus requiring the read through the entire strategy several times. If these readers are included in the supply chain rather than stakeholders, this lack of structure has the potential to add risks and costs. In addition, the right level of detail in the information provided by the strategy needs to guide the supply chain, rather than the supply chain guiding the strategists, to minimize risk in the implementation of the overall Digital Transformation. Furthermore, these deficiencies generate knowledge dependency rather than information independence, affecting competitive procurement processes.

5. Further Considerations

This section provides additional aspects to reflect on during the development of a digital strategy.

5.1. External Consultant Versus Internal Resource

The main driving question for an organisation in the Digital Transformation asks who should create the digital strategy. An external consultant potentially brings a wealth of experience from similar previous projects and transformations; therefore, this consultant should reduce risk while providing a clear direction. However, there are risks with the external consultant option, including the faith and expectations from stakeholders that the consultant possesses the knowledge and expertise to implement the strategy effectively. In addition, the consultant may be employed by a parent organisation that trades assets, solutions, and services that the digital strategy seeks to implement, resulting in a conflict of interest and impartial recommendations, as this parent organisation may profit from otherwise unnecessary solutions. Stakeholders can never be assured that the external consultant is free of bias. Finally, the external consultant also brings digital dependency as the Digital Transformation progresses and evolves if the information is not registered and stored.

On the other hand, the internal resources already possess the cultural breadth of the organisation and knowledge in terms of technology, systems, processes, and functions. The expectations and assumptions are that this internal resource is highly motivated to continuously develop a career and skills by learning in-depth about the organisation, performing extensive market research and delivering the strategy. As a motivated insider, this individual seeks an organisation that is working to be competitive and a leader in the sector. The main risk is the allocation of this internal resource to deliver the Digital Transformation, as this can develop into additional tasks compared to other compulsory activities. Therefore, this individual may not perform at its best due to a lack of motivation or time.

5.2. Artificial Intelligence Versus Human Intelligence

Traditionally, organisational knowledge and culture have been an entirely human transmission where human consultants learn the processes, technology, functions, and behaviours via direct experience or workshops. Then, this human consultant applies this learned experience over time to formulate precise digital strategies tailored to the organisations where specific risks are captured. However, humans become tired and distracted while forgetting information. In addition, humans present a potential for bias, conflicts of interest, or even disgruntled mindsets.

However, with the unstoppable progression of Generative AI and Large Language Models, AI has the potential to replace the human consultant as it does not include human disadvantages. The culture of the organisation can be stored in a digital model; AI can directly elicit potential specific digital strategies after the market research and current state are added to the model. Finally, as IT and OT solutions tend to converge in organisations due to decisions based on risk reduction, supply chain efficiencies, and competition alignment, AI provides better alignment to otherwise standardised digital strategies.

The main issues with AI are its misjudgements and the fact that its outcome needs to be supervised and confirmed by a human. In addition, models within the organisational culture are trained by digital experts; this can generate another digital dependency if these are outsourced to a third-party consultant.

5.3. Cost Versus Quality

Due to Digital Transformation being considered as a project or programme with an associated Return on Investment, transformations may be subject to value engineering techniques seeking delivery at the lowest cost possible. Therefore, efficiencies in time or cost can result in requirements from stakeholders not being captured, a lack of digital agility, or cybersecurity vulnerabilities. These add risks to the digital implementation that eventually will need to be addressed. The worst-case scenario is where digital risks require physical change, or the organisation loses its credibility and customer base.

The digital strategy should bring quality by providing the right amount of information. This not only applies to the required level of detail but also to the value of the information, such as avoidance of unnecessarily wording, embellished presentations or entire irrelevant sections that seem to justify a high consultancy fee. These causes inefficiencies as the main risks or activities can be ignored under the excessive information. Moreover, these wordy strategies also require more time for stakeholders to read and the supply chain to implement, both of them with the additional risk of misunderstandings.

Qualitative analysis for the roadmaps measuring benefits and costs and the Return on Investment shall not be based only on qualitative assessments but evidenced by rigorous quantitative analysis based on CAPEX, OPEX, and monthly digital subscriptions. This is another reason why the right experience of the consultant is essential for the digital strategy.

5.4. Tick in the Box Versus Value Added

Some digital strategies may be created as a response to comply with a statutory requirement from the company board, shareholder or governance process rather than to exploit and benefit from their entire value. Digital strategies shall be provided with extensive market research, and the current state for stakeholders should assure that the digital vision and roadmap activities are justified and follow a logical argument.

The entire sections from the digital strategy should be considered relevant and be provided with relevant information rather than adding some scattered details to fill a template. Once finalised, the digital strategy shall bring autonomy and independence to the next stage, as the entire information is registered; therefore, no further workshops or surveys are required to confirm or validate information, except perhaps for some agile requirements and budget alignment.

5.5. Strategy Versus Design

The delivery of a digital strategy is directly followed by the digital implementation of the Digital Transformation only if it is purely digital with no physical interfaces or dependencies. However, this is rarely the case as digital strategies are normally embedded within a physical environment; therefore, digital designs are normally required.

This digital design shall include requirements, either with a direct incorporation of the digital strategy or by creating them after their elicitation. Power and spatial requirements for digital assets shall be considered, as this normally causes system integration issues. For example, the deployment of the entire digital strategy based on AI may require additional data centre capabilities, which need to be built and powered, generating emissions and consuming water for their cooling. If the digital design is voluntarily or involuntarily skipped in Digital Transformation with associated physical environment dependencies, expensive physical remediation works and uncomfortable aesthetics may degrade the benefits of Digital Transformation due to interference with physical assets.

6. Conclusions

This article has proposed DigStratCon, a digital strategy framework that generalises the Digital Transformation and applies it to any area within an organisation or infrastructure, including Data and Artificial Intelligence. DigStratCon has defined seven components within a digital strategy, specifically (1) market and competition research, (2) target state or digital vision, (3) current state, (4) roadmap, (5) risk assessment, (6) supply chain, and (7) enablers such as project management, target operational model, and change management.

On average, the ten digital strategies from different departments of the UK government score 6/7 with great and realistic ambitions in the digital vision, followed by the current state and a roadmap of activities. Enablers such as project management, governance, change management, and the target operational model are normally defined at different levels of detail. However, market research for competition analysis and trends in technology and applications; detailed, scored risk management based on probability, severity, and mitigations; approximate costs per activity for budgeting; and dependencies between activities are generally not clearly articulated. Finally, there are no specific sections with established KPIs where success or progress can be measured.

The expectation of digital, technology, data, and AI strategies to be standardised and open contrasts with the digital strategies not following a structured approach, where information cannot be easily extracted, thus requiring the entire strategy to be read several times. In addition, the level of detail to support the next stage of the digital strategy shall be provided to minimize risk in the implementation of the overall Digital Transformation. These deficiencies generate knowledge dependency rather than information independence, which again is contradictory to sought-after digital data sharing and integration.

Although DigStratCon defines an open and universal digital strategy, the limitations of the qualitative analysis of this research are its scope, which is purely based on the public sector domain. Future work covers three streams. (1) The assessment based on a multi-scoring approach based on DigStratCon requirements provided in Section 3 and template in Appendix A. (2) The evaluation of DigStratCon against other digital strategies based on other backgrounds, such as business or products, to demonstrate the generalisation of the proposed model. (3) The analysis if a defined structure for digital strategies actually reduces implementation risks and enables Return on Investment on the Digital Transformation while supporting the traditional project’s success-based delivery on time, under budget, within scope, and with health and safety.