VIEWPOINT
UNDERSTANDING WHY DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION PROJECTS FAIL WHILE WE HEAR A LOT ABOUT ORGANISATIONS BEGINNING THEIR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION JOURNEYS, RANJITH KAIPPADA, MANAGING DIRECTOR AT CLOUD BOX TECHNOLOGIES POINTS OUT A MYRIAD OF INTERNAL FACTORS CAN GRIND THEM TO HALT.
T
he pandemic spurred an increase of digital transformation initiatives across organisations and industries. And while this heightened awareness and roll out is meant to be appreciated, organisations still face the challenge of successfully completing such initiatives. Global research organisations have studied completed and stalled digital transformation initiatives from many angles and concluded that the reasons
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CXO INSIGHT ME
MAY 2022
for failure are often non-technical. CIOs need to be aware of the multiple non-technical reasons that can ground digital transformation initiatives, often for no fault of theirs, and plan to find ways to work around the points of failure described below. Limited funding Many finance heads continue to look at technology and IT spending as an operational expense rather than one driving innovation and longer-term
strategic benefit. Hence, when a digital transformation initiative is proposed it may be hard for the CIO to gather the total funding to complete the project. Inability to gather sufficient funds to drive a digital transformation project also arises when financial decision making is siloed and fails to see and apportion the benefits of digital transformation across the organisation. With such an approach, it may be difficult to justify sufficient funds and may require alternative routes for results.
