Escaping from the exploitation trap by shaping the digital future

Even Fortune 500 firms can disappear quickly, because many of them falls into an exploitation trap. Examples show that certain organizations – that manifest ambidextrous features – can avoid the exploitation trap. But, how can they do it? Authors tracked the digital transformation of a Fortune 500 company in order to understand the strategic and organizational challenges and solutions to become resilient and prosperous. A cutting edge example is shown in the paper about how an industry leader can exploit traditional and explore and exploit new industries and markets at the same time. The Authors found that shaping an industry needs a strong top-down leadership, and a strong alignment between markets, strategy and the configuration of the firm.