Professor of Innovation and Strategy Michael Wade is an expert on digital transformation. He holds the Cisco Chair in Digital Business Transformation at IMD and is Director of IMD’s Global Center for Digital Business Transformation. He has published 10 books, more than 100 case studies, and articles on topics including digital business transformation, innovation, strategy, and digital leadership. In 2021 he was elected to the Digital Shapers Hall of Fame by a consortium of Swiss business media, and recently launched the Management under the Microscope podcast, in which he unpacks business myths through conversations with academics and business executives.
Wade helps organizations with the challenges they currently face as they seek to use digital tools and technologies to drive business value. His research shows that 87% of digital transformation programs fail to meet expectations, so his work focuses on identifying the mistakes organizations make when they implement such programs and best practices in execution. What differentiates successful from less successful organizations is how good they are at integrating digital technologies into a broader organizational and cultural transformation, he says. His work also covers ways to improve innovation and creativity, leading effectively in a digital age, and the link between digitalization and ethics.
His latest book, published in October 2021, is Hacking Digital: Best Practices to Implement and Accelerate your Business Transformation, which is aimed at helping companies to solve problems related to digital transformation. Earlier in 2021, he released a book on innovation and creativity called ALIEN Thinking: How to Bring Your Breakthrough Ideas to Life. His 2016 book, Digital Vortex: How Today's Market Leaders Can Beat Disruptive Competitors at their Own Game, won multiple awards and was a bestseller in several languages.
Wade has also been published in leading journals including Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, the Journal of Management Information Systems, MIS Quarterly, and the Strategic Management Journal, and is a regular contributor to Fortune Magazine, Forbes, and The Conversation, providing commentary on digital business issues and trends.