Orchestrating Digital Resilience: A Clinical IS Study of an Everything-as-a-Service Technology Strategy

Abstract

ABSTRACT Organisations must build digital resilience to effectively safeguard their business operations against environmental, economic, or socio-political disruptions. One approach involves adaptation – using Information Technology (IT) to design business operations that can withstand and recover from such disruptions. A second approach involves mitigation – using IT to advance environmental, social, or economic objectives that reduce the root causes and likelihood of future disruptions. However, both approaches to building digital resilience are challenging to implement. Our clinical Information Systems (IS) research article examines and reflects on how Beta Bank, an Australian fintech firm, developed an Everything-as-a-Service (EaaS) technology strategy and achieved digital resilience throughout its business operations. We explain how Beta Bank strategically leveraged EaaS to adapt to the significant disruptions caused by the Australian wildfire disaster and the global COVID pandemic of 2019–2021. We then unpack how Beta Bank further leveraged EaaS to enhance its digital resilience via a mitigation approach. Our work delineates a typology of four EaaS pathways for pursuing digital resilience, discusses the scholarly implications of EaaS as a future IS research area, and provides actionable managerial guidance through an EaaS roadmap, a strategic planning tool for those aiming to implement and benefit from this technology strategy.