Break the Wall

Zeynep Aksehirli is an Associate Professor of Management and Organizational Development. She has published various articles and books on corporate culture, and network structures.Yakov Bart is an Associate Professor of Marketing, named as one of the world’s top 40 undergraduate business school professors.Kwong Chan is an Academic Specialist who has published research across domains including Product Innovation, Advertising, Public Policy, Engineering and Marketing.Koen Pauwels is Distinguished Professor, named a worldwide top 2% scientist. He has published 4 books and over 80 articles on marketing effectiveness. While writing this book, Koen was President of the American Marketing Association’s Academic Council.

"Digital Transformation" is probably one of the most popular business buzzwords these days, but the urgency of it is still real. At this point, most business leaders have a good sense of the "what" and the "why," especially because we see it every day in the leading brands who are capturing more of our spend. But the "how" can feel daunting. In "Break the Wall," the AMA does a masterful job of laying out why transformation is not just proclamations from the top and moving budgets around. It stems from a customer-first, data-first approach to looking at one's strategy. And when you do, it quickly becomes clear that removing the "walls" within most organizations, which were set up for an older vision of efficiency and control, becomes one of the most important accelerators of change. Whether it is linking data, bringing cross-functional teams together to improve customer journeys, speeding up time to market, or just bringing more diverse views together to drive innovation, breaking the walls must be a critical priority for the business -- beyond getting the tools, hiring the data scientists, and enhancing one's design skills. But that's not easy. The AMA's book does a masterful job of providing practical examples -- from large, small, B2C, B2B, and businesses across sectors -- that can provide guideposts for how to think through one's own roadmap for change. Every leadership team realizing that their change efforts have stalled, or who are even just beginning, need to read this book, share their learning, and use that to pinpoint the walls to break and the techniques for doing so.

• Chapter 1. Introduction to Seven big insights Chapter 2. Frame Digital Transformation Chapter 3. Set Your Goals Chapter 4. Analyze the Gaps Chapter 5. Wield the Sledgehammer Chapter 6. Design the Open-floor Plan Chapter 7. Implement to Avoid Pitfalls Chapter 8. Learn from the Experiences of Others