- So I have some good news and some bad news.
The bad news is that a lot of digital transformation efforts
go nowhere.
Companies will pour a lot of attention and cash
into a transformation project
but wind up a couple of years down the road
in more or less the same place.
The good news is that there are some definable reasons
why these attempts don't work out.
In this chapter of the course, we're going to look at the ones
that I think are the most important.
So my first reason why digital transformation efforts
don't succeed.
The people in charge don't really understand
the problem they're trying to solve.
Now, this may be a cynical viewpoint
but it seems to me that what happens all too often
is that some leader will get excited about a trend
or a buzzword or just something that's perceived as cool
and they'll start pushing the company at it.
It's like when people brag about being disrupters
because they've heard that term
applied to successful companies
and want to jump on the bandwagon
but being disruptive doesn't just mean
changing stuff willy-nilly.
Disruption for disruption's sake is foolish.
What these people are missing
is coming up with a business reason and plan
for their disruptive actions.
Change, transformation, disruption,
whatever you want to call it, it needs to be purposeful
and that means you need to have an understanding
of the problem you're trying to solve
and be directing efforts towards that.
So if you're planning on leading an organization
through a digital transformation,
at a minimum you need to have a good understanding
of how your business sits today and at least a vague idea
of what your desired end result is.