March Madness teams live by an old adage that rarely fails: Survive and advance. This year, we have seen Virginia go from losing to a No. 16 seed in 2018 to being Final Four-bound and both Auburn and Texas Tech surviving near upsets, toppling top seeds, and overcoming major injuries to break brackets across the nation on their respective runs to the Final Four.

Today, we see many companies focusing on “survive and advance”: to keep up margins, balance sheets, and stock prices in the face of technology-enabled disruption. These companies must ask themselves what will happen to their businesses if their industry could change, if their customer needs could suddenly swerve, or if unicorn disruptors could start scooping up their customers. How do companies “survive and thrive” instead of simply survive and advance?

Select industry leaders and market disruptors have established innovation practices that reimagine futures by capitalizing on advancements in technology. They recognize that incremental innovation misses big disruptive opportunities. But how do you keep from falling into the age-old trap of chasing technology for its own sake? Tech-driven innovation is Forrester’s answer, and it’s what firms need to ride the crest of the next wave of change.

DT&I Track Sessions

This year we decided to switch things up for our DT&I Forum and emphasize three main theme tracks: core technology, emerging technology and innovation, and the future of work. The core technology track will help you lay the technology foundation down for your digital transformation. The future of work track will guide you through what Forrester finds is a crucial element to creating an adaptive organization. And our emerging technology and innovation track will help you understand what tech-driven innovation means for your business.

  • Emerging technology and innovation track. I will be leading this track and helping our customers understand what tech-driven innovation truly is. We will be weaving sessions together throughout the two-day event to help you understand the full potential of AI, build your emerging technology road map, and learn the key pieces to embracing tech-driven innovation. We are also very excited to have Morag Watson, head of the digital innovation office at British Petroleum, present about what it means to bring tech-led innovation to life.
  • Future of work track. J. P. Gownder will be leading this track as we begin to explore the capabilities of an adaptive company and how employee experience, robotics quotient, and Forrester’s Future Fit scoring intermingle in our everyday workplace environment.
  • Core technology track. Liz Herbert will be leading the track to help firms identify strategies around their core technology that lead to real digital transformation. These sessions will also feature a business case panel, a discussion around modern enterprise applications, and how to modernize your system for the cloud.

I invite you to join us at Forrester’s Digital Transformation & Innovation 2019 Forum on May 14 and 15, where we will cover tech-driven innovation and provide depth on how firms are already using it to be more disruptive.