The typical rationale put forward for failing digital transformation is linked to ill-designed processes, absence of organizational commitment, and poor digital skills. There are obvious operational mistakes--but one more insidious form of failure is not that the digital transformation launched by a traditional incumbent blows to bits because of lack of skills; it is that the digital transformation is only half baked and its returns are far from distinctive.
Consider that the returns of failed digital transformations, out of hundreds of digital transformations we researched, are indeed negative or less than a few percentage points, but it is clearly troubling that the median return barely reaches between 7-10% of return on digital capital deployed, –a return that is really not at all distinguishable from the weighted
