Top firms like McKinsey work with clients across industries and around the world. While they do need to learn from clients about specifics for each engagement, they can also leverage their global learnings in helping other clients. REWIRED is a great example of that. Apparently the book is the actual workbook used by McKinsey teams when helping clients through digital transformations. It reflects what the firm has learned from helping many clients in many industries across many geographies through the same process. It captures best practices, watchouts, and key learnings and shares those in easy to reference materials that can be easily shared across client teams. Every chapter includes graphics (flowcharts, organization charts, structure tables, etc.) that crisply and clearly present key elements of what is being covered.
REWIRED is a guidebook to the very large and complex process of business transformation driven by digital advances. It has been developed specifically for the types of engagements where a firm like McKinsey will thrive — very complex change initiatives for very large companies that typically take years to complete and perfect. As a guide book, it will have value to companies just considering such a transformation effort, for those beginning that effort, and throughout the multi-quarter process.
The book is broken into seven sections. Six of the sections outline key elements of a transformation process and go into meaningful detail for the decisions required and the process for making those decisions. The seventh section provides three case studies of companies that have gone through such a transformation. Mini-case studies are also provided throughout the first six sections to provide real-world examples of how key decisions have been made and the resulting benefits.
In general, it is not helpful to read every word in the book from cover to cover. Someone considering such a transformation should read the introduction and first section to get a sense for how the effort would be structured and what the benefits would be, while skimming the chapter and section heads of the rest of the book to understand all the changes involved. At the beginning of the transformation journey, a leader should read section one, lightly read (skipping more detailed paragraphs) the next five sections to get a high level sense of the work involved, and then read section seven to learn from and be inspired by the three case studies. Each of the five middle sections should later be carefully and completely read as the transformation effort progresses and those issues are specifically being addressed.
Bottom line, REWIRED is an impressive book. It breaks down the overwhelming effort of transforming every aspect of how a large business operates in order to capture the competitive benefits of digital technologies into a large and structured collection of decisions and actions. It will be most useful for leaders who are hiring McKinsey to lead their organizations through such a transformation, but it will also be helpful to any leader wanting to get a glimpse of what it would take for their organization to be so transformed.