Transformation, a fancy word for going digital?

If you Google business transformation you’ll find yourself looking at a first page dominated by digital transformation examples: case studies, ‘how to’ models and companies offering to pilot you through your digital transformation process. It’s fair to say that digital has done a good job of appropriating the term transformation. And, although digital has a role to play and in some instances is the trigger for enterprisewide transformation, it is by no means the end in its own right and is more often simply one tool to execute part of a transformation process.

By exploring transformation in New Zealand business, we wanted to get beyond digital and so we included companies undergoing enterprise-wide transformation as well as companies undertaking internal cultural transformation and marketing or brand transformation projects. It wasn’t difficult to find examples within New Zealand, which should not have surprised us because transformation programmes are becoming so widespread that in a recent survey of US corporates conducted by Forbes/kpmg, 93 percent stated they were undergoing transformation. You have to wonder if the other seven percent are asleep!

The same survey reported that transformation fatigue was an issue, with a quarter of those surveyed saying it was the business term they were most tired of hearing. Delving into this a bit more, the problem does not appear to be about fully fledged transformation projects, but instead about piecemeal change projects with rapid switches of direction, spray-and-pray methods for communicating to employees and a lack of single-minded purpose for the change. Clearly these projects will not create the innovation-driven environment that a well thoughtthrough transformation process creates.