Samurais and Ninjas: Ambidexterity @ AXA Konzern AG

In our digital world, organizations are struggling with the handling of disruptive innovations and corresponding ambidexterity (i.e. IT ambidexterity and bimodal IT). Ambidexterity describes the ability to combine two opposing components and to simultaneously manage the exploration of new possibilities as well as the exploitation of old certainties. IT ambidexterity and bimodal IT illustrate ambidexterity on IT level and IT function level. Bimodal IT illustrates the IT function decomposition into the traditional mode (focusing on stability) and the agile mode (centering on speed and experimentation). The chapter presents the result of an explorative case study conducted at AXA Konzern AG. Particularly, it investigates AXA Konzern AG’s exploitative and explorative initiatives which should support its future development in order to overcome disruptive innovations. This chapter outlines, based on a concrete example, the impact of ambidexterity, IT ambidexterity and bimodal IT on business, IT and sourcing strategies.