Digital Transformation at Scale: Why the Strategy is Delivery

This book is for people worrying about their sinking ship. Based on experience, it is a guide for navigating the blockers, buzzwords and bloody-mindedness that doom any analogue organisation trapped into thinking that while the internet has changed the world, it won't change their world.

Companies that grew up on the web have changed our expectations of the services we rely on. We demand simplicity, speed and low cost. Organizations founded before the Internet aren't keeping up - despite spending millions on IT, marketing and 'innovation'.

This revised, expanded second edition of Digital Transformation at Scale is a guide to building a digital institution. It explains how a growing band of reformers in businesses and governments around the world have helped their organizations pivot to this new way of working, and what lessons others can learn from their experience.

It is based on the authors' experience designing and helping to deliver the UK's Government Digital Service (GDS). The GDS was a new institution made responsible for the digital transformation of government, designing public services for the Internet era. It snipped £4 billion off the government's technology bill, opened up public sector contracts to thousands of new suppliers, and delivered online services so good that citizens chose to use them over the offline alternatives, without a big marketing campaign. Other countries and companies noticed, with the GDS model now being copied around the world.

All four authors are partners in Public Digital Ltd. which helps large international organisations, governments and senior leaders to deliver digital transformation at scale. Andrew Greenway worked in five government departments, including the Government Digital Service, where he led the team that delivered the UK's digital service standard. Ben Terrett was Director of Design at the Government Digital Service, where he led the multidisciplinary design team for GOV.UK which won the Design of the Year award in 2013. Mike Bracken was appointed Executive Director of Digital for the UK government in 2011 and the Chief Data Officer in 2014. Tom Loosemore wrote the UK's Government Digital Strategy, and served as the GDS's deputy director for five years.