Why Digital Transformations Fail - and How to Make Them Succeed
“70% of digital transformations fail”
It’s a statistic we hear often — and one that should make any leadership team pause.
Why would organisations knowingly embark on programmes that:
Cost millions
Disrupt technology and people
And appear doomed from the outset.
The problem isn’t that transformation is impossible.
It’s that we often misunderstand what transformation actually is.
Digital transformation isn’t about replacing a system or modernising a tech stack.
It’s a much broader shift in:
How your organisation is designed
How decisions are made
How customers are engaged
How outcomes are improved — enabled by technology, not driven by it
Seen this way, it’s no surprise so many programmes struggle.
Organisations embark on transformation for good reasons:
Legacy systems block meaningful customer engagement
Products no longer meet customer expectations
Manual processes introduce risk, cost, and compliance issues.
But the scale and sequence of change matter.
And underpinning all of it is the hardest part of transformation: People
Technology change without people change doesn’t transform anything.
If stakeholders aren’t brought on the journey —
If leaders aren’t willing to change how decisions are made —
If the organisation from the CEO down isn’t ready to work differently —
Then the risk of the failure is greater.
The organisations I see making real progress tend to focus less on “the programme” and more on a few fundamentals:
Creating a clear strategy and vision so teams know what outcomes they’re aiming for
Breaking the programme into manageable chunks of work
Isolating and resolving dependencies
Supporting and coaching product teams to make confident decisions
Map and plan for the impact of the new technology and expected changes in behaviours
Ability to pivot and prioritise when problems arise and overlapping dependencies stall progress
Define benefits and establish a roadmap for achieving them (beware that the benefits from transformation can sometimes take years to come to fruition)
Being honest about what suppliers and partners are enabling — and where they may be limiting change
Remembering to celebrate success and reward progress every step of the way!
In the following series of posts, I’ll be exploring these themes in more detail, drawing on my experience in product management and digital change to turn failure into success.
Because transformation doesn’t fail because it’s too ambitious.
It fails because we treat it as something to deliver, not something to become.
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