Why so many digital transformation efforts stall and what we’ve learned from helping leaders get it right
The Digital Transformation Paradox
We all know the numbers digital transformation is on every boardroom agenda, yet fewer than 30% of those initiatives deliver sustainable ROI.
From financial services and healthcare to manufacturing and logistics, I’ve worked with teams who started strong but quickly hit walls: bloated roadmaps, confused priorities, and cultures still stuck in legacy thinking.
That’s why I’ve come to believe this: transformation succeeds when we focus on outcomes over activity, leadership over technology, and value over vanity. Here's how I guide my clients and what you might find helpful if you're on a similar journey.
1. Start With Value - Not Tech
One of the most common missteps I see? Starting with tech for tech’s sake.
“Digital transformation should never be a tech refresh masquerading as strategy.”
Instead, successful transformations begin with bold, business-led goals: expanding into new markets, reducing time-to-market, improving CX, or unlocking productivity at scale. Technology simply becomes the enabler.
What we’ve seen work:
- Define a value-backed vision that resonates with the C-suite and frontline alike
- Build transformation business cases with clear KPIs like EBIT uplift, NPS, or new revenue streams
- Tie digital initiatives directly to board-level priorities; otherwise, they’ll lose funding and momentum fast
2. Make It a Leadership Imperative
Here’s something I’ve learned the hard way: you can’t delegate transformation. It must be led.
I’ve seen the most success where leadership teams didn’t just approve the roadmap they owned it. They brought digital into the core of business strategy, upskilled themselves, and restructured how decisions were made.
"Digital is no longer the CIO’s side hustle; it’s the CEO’s core agenda."
What high-performing companies do:
- Designate a C-level transformation leader with real authority
- Build cross-functional digital squads-business, ops, tech, and finance at the same table
- Invest in change leadership as a muscle, not just a comms campaign
Quick story: A manufacturing client of mine increased speed of adoption dramatically once they included factory leads and finance in transformation steering, not just IT.
3. Fix the Foundation Before You Fly
You can’t build AI on spaghetti code. And I’ve seen too many orgs try.
If your systems don’t talk to each other, if your data is siloed, if your architecture can’t support experimentation, you’ll end up burning cash on pilots that never scale.
Here’s where we start:
- Assess and clean up legacy tech debt
- Prioritize data governance and interoperability, AI-readiness depends on it
- Invest in composable, API-first architecture so teams can move fast
Real lesson: A major insurer we worked with wanted to automate claims but had to consolidate 17 systems into a unified data lake first. Only then did their AI investments deliver value.
Culture Is the Real Catalyst
You can’t transform a business if you don’t transform how people think, behave, and work.
McKinsey data shows companies with cultural alignment to transformation goals are 3x more likely to succeed. I’ve seen this firsthand. Culture eats strategy, every time.
Levers that shift mindset:
- Craft a narrative that explains why now, what’s changing, and what success looks like
- Create incentives for experimentation and digital-first behaviours
- Break silos by embedding collaboration into operating models (e.g., digital product teams)
“Transformation fatigue is real but so is the energy that comes when teams feel they’re shaping the future.”
5. Deploy Tech with Purpose
Shiny new platforms don’t drive change; purposeful use cases do.
We advise clients to place smart bets where digital materially shifts outcomes:
- Use AI to augment decision-making, not just automate tasks
- Use IoT for transparency and predictive maintenance
- Use cloud to accelerate development, not just lower costs
What sets winners apart? They scale what works, link use cases to P&L impact, and embed security/compliance from day one, not later.
6. Measure What Moves the Needle
Transformation without measurement is theatre.
Too many teams still rely on system uptime and deployment milestones. Instead, we help clients track:
- Revenue from digital channels
- Time-to-market improvements
- Cost-to-serve reductions
- Productivity per FTE post-automation
Pro tip: Create a Value Realization Office (VRO) that owns these KPIs and keeps leadership focused on outcomes, not activity.
7. Think Ecosystem, Not Empire
The most innovative digital leaders aren’t building alone they’re co-creating.
Whether it’s partnerships with startups, hyperscalers, or academia, the best outcomes emerge when we build digital ecosystems that extend beyond the enterprise.
“Digital value compounds when we break silos inside and outside our walls.”
Examples I’ve seen up close:
- A U.S. retailer co-built AI personalization with a university lab
- A healthcare org partnered with an AI startup and cloud vendor to reinvent diagnostics
- A global logistics client opened their data via API to enable real-time supplier integration
Less Theatre, More Traction
Digital transformation isn’t about doing more tech, it’s about doing smarter, faster, more human business.
We’ve helped leaders who succeeded by:
- Leading with purpose, not jargon
- Investing in culture as deeply as code
- Measuring impact relentlessly and pivoting fast
If you're driving change in your organization, I’d love to connect. Let’s talk about how we can turn transformation into traction.
Let’s Talk
If you're rethinking your digital roadmap or wondering how to turn transformation into traction we can help.
Connect with ACI Infotech’s Digital Transformation Advisory.
Let’s build a blueprint that’s engineered for value.
