Why Do Digital Transformation Initiatives Fail?
GE Digital’s failure highlights why most digital transformations collapse—misaligned vision, rigid structures, weak change management, and talent gaps. Success demands balancing innovation appetite with strategy, culture, and empathetic employee engagement.
In 2015, GE decided to invest billions of dollars to form a separate unit named GE Digital. This venture was launched to centralize the digital initiatives of the company and to achieve its vision of becoming one of the top ten software companies by 2020. Due to the creation of this unit, the IT development needs of other prominent GE business units like GE Aviation, GE Power, and others, were deprioritized and these units were no longer in a position to directly address their respective digital needs.
Consequently, this initiative backfired. There was an absence of a clear vision and misalignment between company goals and its digital innovation appetite.
This is not a one-off case. Digital transformation initiatives seldom see the light of day, even if they are backed by high budget approvals, support of board members along an army of highly trained consultants and technical experts.
In fact, years of research on digital transformations have shown that less than 30% of digital transformation projects are successful. And, less than 8% of organizations are able to achieve their desired outcomes from investments in digital technology, as discovered by a research study carried out by Bain & Co.
So, why do…
Create an account to continue reading
Create AccountAlready have an account? Sign in
Need an expert in this space?
Talk to an Industry Expert
Knowledge Ridge connects decision-makers with carefully vetted subject matter experts for one-on-one calls, research sprints, and advisory engagements — across 11 sectors and 163 sub-industries globally.
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first to comment!