Transform or be transformed: the importance of research on managing and sustaining digital transformations

Digital transformation is here to stay. With the emergence of new digital innovations and diverse and rich data sources, only those organisations that can adapt faster and make better, quicker decisions will become more competitive. Yet, being a first mover is only the start of the transformation process. Organisations need to address and implement digital strategies to manage and sustain a digital transformation in order to stay with, or ahead of, their competition. In this article, we outline some of the key challenges associated with researching digital transformations within the information systems (IS) field and stress the importance of shifting the focus on how digital transformations are managed and sustained. To explore this further, we launched a Special Issue on “Managing and Sustaining Digital Transformations” and received a large volume of submissions. After a series of reviews and revisions, we were delighted to unearth four excellent articles on this important topic. Our hope with this Special Issue is to improve researchers’ abilities to identify the importance of managing and sustaining digital transformations and to encourage them to build on these contributions to better unpack the digital transformation process for the future.