Rewired: The McKinsey Guide to Outcompeting in the Age of Digital and AI 
Eric Lamarre, Kate Smaje, and Rodney Zemmel    
Wiley (June 2023)

Here’s a detailed perspective on how to build enterprise capabilities to scale

What do Eric Lamarre, Kate Smaje, and Rodney Zemmel mean by digital and AI transformation?

“A digital and AI transformation is the process [Led by CEO and Top Team] of developing organizations and technology-based capabilities [The source of competitive advantage] that allow a company to continuously improve [It’s never done!] its customer experience and lower its unit costs [Both matter] and over time sustain a competitive advantage [The finality].”

Lamarre, Smaje, and Zemmel provide an abundance of valuable information, insights, and counsel that are carefully organized within six sections. Each has a prefix of HOW TO:

1. Create the transformation “roadmap”
2. Build a “top talent” bench
3. Adopt a new operating model
4. Build a distributed technology workplace environment
5. Embed data everywhere
6. Unlock adoption and scaling

“How companies navigate the digital world to achieve sustainable competitive advantage is the defining business challenge of our time. For digital and AI transformations to scale and deliver on their promises, the top team needs to be ready and willing to undertake the organizational ‘surgery’ required to rewrite their business so they can outcompete with technology.”

I also want to call to your attention Lamarre, Smaje, and Zemmel’s ingenious use of reader-friendly examples that include checklists, bullet points,  Exhibits, action step sequences, mini-case studies, and a “Getting Ready” section for each of the six Sections. Each is a set of questions to help you home in on the right actions to take. Check out each set on Pages 67, 125, 167, 235, and 345.

These are among the passages of greatest interest and value to me, also listed to indicate the scope of the co-authors’ coverage:

o Introduction (Pages 1-13)
o A business-led roadmap: the blueprint for a successful digital and AI transformation (15-17)
o Have business leaders define what is possible (33-36)
o Build capabilities for now and the next decade (49-56)
o Creating an environment where digital talent thrives (69-70)

o Case example: A global insurance company fills its talent gap (78-79)
o Exhibit 10.3: Current state recruiting journey(92-93)
o Agile is a superior development approach (120-127)
o Exhibit 14.1: Building blocks of agile operating models (133-135)
o Exhibit 14.6: How risk management is embedded in agile operating model (142-143)

o Exhibit 17.1: Four foundational shifts to upgrade architecture for digital (174-179)
o The family of xOps practices  (197-205)
o Control and auditability of the production environment (217-220)
o Identifying and prioritizing data  (239-245)
o The future of play takes shape at the LEGO group (365-371)

As I read what Lamarre, Smaje, and Zemmel have to say about how to reskill pivotal business roles (near the end of his book), I was again reminded of this prediction by Alvin Toffler in his “classic” work, Future Shock (1970): “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

Eric Lamarre, Kate Smaje, and Rodney Zemmel may have had this prediction in mind when observing, “Focus heavy reskilling programs on the pivotal business roles that will need to be radically transformed to capture the value of the digital and AI transformation. Role-specific reskilling programs require significant time — anywhere between three and nine months — and they tend to be industry-specific: merchants in retail, underwriters in insurance, product marketers in banking,  agronomists in agriculture, network planners in transportation and logistics, etc. These roles are undergoing massive change with the embedding of data and use of AI.”

I think Rewired is a “must-read,” especially for C-level executives, and am certain that its value will become increasingly greater in months and years to come. It is a brilliant achievement. Bravo!

Here are two concluding suggestions: Highlight key passages, and, keep a lined notebook near at hand while reading Rewired in which you record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references as well as your responses to the questions posed and to lessons you have learned. (Pay close attention to the “Key Points” at the end of chapters.) These two simple tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later.