Thought Leadership Series: Hype, Hope, and Realistic Expectations of Digitalisation

Please note, this event is exclusively for MBA Alumni & Students only.

Digital transformation and digital maturity require clarity. In a landscape filled with bold claims and new technologies, leaders must be able to distinguish hype from real capability to effectively guide their organisations forward.

Using Gartner’s Hype Cycle, this session explores key digital developments—particularly AI—to unpack inflated expectations and highlight practical, achievable applications of emerging technologies.

Participants will gain a clearer understanding of where major technologies truly sit in their maturity journey and how to make informed decisions that support meaningful digital progress.

Strategic leaders face growing pressure to keep pace with an unprecedented onslaught of opportunities for digital advancement. This push toward digitalisation comes riddled with unfounded expectations about the value to be gained and unrealistic expectations about the resources required to adopt emerging digital technologies. Nowhere are these unrealistic and unfounded expectations more evident than in the pressure placed on leaders to incorporate AI across every aspect of organisational systems and professional practice.

In 2026, our three-part online Thought Leadership Series explores the uncharted landscape of leading through digitalisation. Each session will address the interplay of two related leadership challenges: a) the challenge of advancing organisational and professional performance through digitalisation and b) the challenge of leading diverse stakeholders through a wilderness of uncertainty and unrealistic expectations.

As strategic leaders continue to confront rapid advances in digital technologies, we face growing pressure to redesign business models, reimagine value creation, and guide our people through increasingly complex transitions. In 2026, our Thought Leadership Series will provide insights for critical examination and leadership of digitalisation across organisations and within one’s own professional practice.

Digitalisation hinges on the realistic and purposeful application of digital technologies to rethink business models and create new opportunities to generate value. Digital transformation takes the thinking a step further to integrate digital advancements within organisational operations and/or professional processes. But consistently making these shifts productive over the long term depends on developing digital maturity—the capability to integrate existing and emerging advancements in digital technology thoughtfully, effectively, and responsibly over time. Taken together, digitalisation, digital transformation, and digital maturity provide the conceptual foundation of the 2026 Thought Leadership Series. Instead of focusing on the technologies in isolation, the series aims to show how leaders can prepare themselves, their organisations, and their people for waves of digital advances that will continue to emerge across decades to come.

The first session, Hype, Hope, and Realistic Expectations of Digitalisation, will be followed by:

• Digitalisation Across the Organisation – Thu, 13 August, 6–7:15pm AEST

• Digitalisation In Professional Practice – Thu, 29 October, 6–7:15pm AEST

By the end of this series, you will develop a grounded understanding of where digital technologies sit in the Hype Cycle, how to distinguish genuine opportunities from hype, and how to navigate the dynamics of digitalisation for organisational performance and professional practice.