We examine the impact of an incumbent firm’s prior experience in strategic renewal on its likelihood of adopting a new technology post-entry, with a focus on incumbents’ relative ability to manage external relationships. Building on prior work that highlights differences in transformational experience and integrative knowledge possessed by de alio firms—diversifying firms into the focal industry—and de novo firms—firms that are born in the focal industry context—we hypothesize that de alio incumbents will be more likely to switch to the new technology than de novo incumbents. Further, we examine the moderating effect of prior experience in strategic renewal on the incumbent’s ability to manage external relationships, and hypothesize that de alio incumbents are also better able to leverage their external relationships when confronted with disruptive change than de novo incumbents. The proposed hypotheses were tested in the context of digital transition in the industry of wireless telecommunications service in the U.S. when the analog incumbents faced challenges from the disruptive digital technology. Empirical results suggest that de alio incumbents are more likely to adopt the new technology than de novo incumbents. Further, de alio incumbents are less affected by the constraints from having a long and a large relationship with existing suppliers in the adoption process than de novo incumbents.