Why many transformations fail

Software is at the heart of every product and service in every industry – from the customer experience to supply chain management (see Chapter 1, Metrics That Matter). This means a lot of enterprises must transform to become digital high-performance companies, but many of these transformations fail. Roles are renamed, management levels are restructured, and hosting is renamed to private cloud, but often the culture and performance do not change. There are many reasons why transformations fail and I want to give you some examples here.

Assuming your company or industry is special

Many customers that I meet believe that they are completely special, but they are not. And, I’m sorry to say, it’s probable that neither is your company or industry. At least, not when it comes to digital transformation. Could your product kill people if it has a defect? So could cars, airplanes, trucks, medical devices, and so on. And the same is true...