Researcher

Dr Alan Thorogood

My Expertise

Digital transformation

IT Strategy

Outsourcing

Sourcing

Digital Government

Keywords

Biography

Alan is a Senior Visiting Fellow at UNSW's School of Information Systems and Technology Management. His primary role is at MIT CISR, where he is responsible for research and member engagement in the Asia Pacific.

His research explores how organizations partner effectively with others of various sizes or types and how they can build their own digital capability. Drawing on in-depth qualitative data from start-ups, SMEs, banks, corporations, and...view more

Alan is a Senior Visiting Fellow at UNSW's School of Information Systems and Technology Management. His primary role is at MIT CISR, where he is responsible for research and member engagement in the Asia Pacific.

His research explores how organizations partner effectively with others of various sizes or types and how they can build their own digital capability. Drawing on in-depth qualitative data from start-ups, SMEs, banks, corporations, and government agencies, he is works with successful large organizations that manage innovative relationships. The proper guardrails allow managers and entrepreneurs to move quickly with executive support.

With a background as an executive in financial services, the public sector, and multinational consulting companies. Formerly the Head of Digital Strategy for the Australian government's Turnbull administration, he has held senior digital strategy roles at Westpac, Accenture and PwC.

My Qualifications

PhD, MBA, HMD

My Research Activities

At UNSW, he is exploring digital innovation and capabilities. The motivation is to help organisations prepare for digital services. One stream is examining how organisations can measure their digital capabilities, such as user research or agile management.

The other research stream is identifying how government agencies can work together across jurisdictions. Collaboration is necessary to design and deliver integrated digital services. These services should fit what people and business need, not what is convenient for government silos. Democratic countries with multiple levels of government find this challenging.

Alan’s previous work in how councils, boards and executives make large complex IT investment decisions appears in journals such as MIS Quarterly Executive. He has also published on strategy in the Journal of Strategic Information Systems.

The intersection of academia and practice is what motivates Alan’s research. The application of rigorous methods to solve practical problems helps academics and managers. It can provide useful insights and grounds the work in today’s needs.

My Research Supervision

Supervision keywords

digital

Areas of supervision

Digital transformation

Digital capabilities

Outsourcing

Currently supervising

Digital capabilities

My Engagement

In 2022, Alan presented at the LawTech summit.

In 2020, Alan was a judge for the Digital Excellence NSW Premier's Awards.

In 2019, Alan presented at two conferences. One was the Enterprise Architecture Summit in Sydney with Dr Toomas Tamm on the impact of Digital on Enterprise Architecutre. The other was the NSW Government's Digital.NSW Showcase on the transitions taking place across European governments in their digital transformation.

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