Leadership Lessons Learned From Failed Digital Transformations

Digital transformations are essential in an era when every enterprise is a tech company. But they are also disruptive, expensive and risky. Three of the most iconic US corporations - GE, Ford and Procter & Gamble - each with vast resources and expertise, attempted such initiatives and failed to achieve their goals. In every case, the CEO was forced to leave.

Leadership is more important to transformational success than is the technology itself. Planning, coordinating, collaborating and inspiring are among the intangible assets whose effective implementation is crucial to realizing digital optimization. JL


Blake Morgan reports in Forbes:

70% of digital transformations fail. Digital transformation is a complicated and risky endeavor.A failed digital transformation doesn’t spell the end of a company, but it can be costly in lost money, resources, time and credibility. A digital transformation for transformation sake only won’t be effective. It must consider all outside factors and be tightly tied to strategy. To be successful, digital transformation efforts need to be integrated with the rest of the company. (But) digital transformations are often done best with a handful of passionate people leading.

A staggering 70% of digital transformations fail. Although most companies and executives know how crucial it is to evolve with technology and create digital processes and solutions, putting it into action is a different story. Many companies have endeavored on digital transformations, only to hit roadblocks. Understanding what went wrong with the following three companies can provide guidelines of things to avoid and point future digital transformations in the right direction.

• The majority of digital transformation efforts hit roadblocks and fail
• GE created a new digital business unit but was focused on size instead of quality
• Ford started a new digital service that was separate from the rest of the company instead of integrating digital solutions
• Procter & Gamble didn’t consider the competition or impending economic crash
• These missteps can spell doom for digital transformation, but all three companies managed to try again with better success

It’s important to note that although these companies failed on their initial digital transformation efforts, they were able to make adjustments to succeed in the future. A failed digital transformation doesn’t spell the ultimate end of a company, but it can be incredibly costly in lost money, resources, time and credibility.
GE
In 2011, GE started a major effort to assert itself in the digital software space by building a huge IoT platform, adding sensors to products and transforming its business models for industrial products. It took the next step in 2015, when it created a new business unit called GE Digital. The goal was to leverage data to turn GE into a technology powerhouse. Despite pouring billions of dollars into GE Digital and its thousands of employees, the company’s stock price continued to drop and other products suffered. GE Digital quickly became stuck in the pattern of having to report earnings to shareholders and was focused more on short-term goals and earnings than long-term innovative goals and returns. The CEO was soon forced out.Lesson: Focus on quality, not quantity. GE tried to do too much without a real strategic focus in any area. The company was simply too large to transform all at once, especially without a true vision of what it was trying to achieve. Digital transformations are often done best with a handful of passionate people leading the charge instead of thousands of employees.
FordIn 2014, classic American car company Ford attempted a digital transformation by creating a new segment called Ford Smart Mobility. The goal was to build digitally enabled cars with enhanced mobility. The issues arose when the new segment wasn’t integrated into the rest of Ford. Not only was it headquartered far from the rest of the company, but
it was seen as a separate entity with no cohesion to other business units. As Ford dumped huge amounts of money into its new venture, it faced quality concerns in other areas of the company. Ford’s stock price dropped dramatically, and the CEO stepped down a few year later.
Lesson: Integrate digital transformation efforts with the rest of the company. In this case, digital transformation as less of an actual transformation and more of a pivot into a new business area. To be successful, digital transformation needs to be integrated into the company.
Procter & Gamble
In 2012, consumer packaged goods giant Procter & Gamble set out to become “the most digital company on the planet.” The company was already leading the industry when it decided to take things to the next level with a digital transformation. However, its broad goal led to broad initiatives that lacked purpose. Coupled with a slumping economy, P&G faced problems from the start. The CEO was soon asked to resign by the board.
Lesson: Look at the competition. The return on investment for a widespread and expensive digital transformation was small, especially with signs on an economy on the brink. P&G likely could have seen more success if it had focused on smaller digital efforts that were more targeted to its existing products and processes. It failed to look at what was going on in the industry to see it was already ahead of competitors and what was going on with the economy. A digital transformation for transformation sake only won’t be effective. It must consider all outside factors and be tightly tied to strategy.
A digital transformation is a complicated and risky endeavor. When done correctly, it can lead to amazing, future-proof results, but when done incorrectly it can be extremely costly and embarrassing for the company. These failed transformations show common missteps, but the companies behind them prove that failure isn’t the end of the road and that successful digital transformation is possible.