Traditional firms need to digitally transform but carry legacy baggage as constraints—their legacy customer orientation and legacy operational capabilities. So, under these constraining dimensions, how can executives in legacy firms strategize their digital transformations? Based on field research and action research with firms in the United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, and Italy, the paper offers a “Lifting Legacy Anchors” framework to denote useful digital transformation strategies for legacy firms—highlighting opportunities, challenges, and downstream spillover benefits beyond the quotidian.
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