About this episode

Most organizations treat digital transformation as a project with an end date. Matt Bader argues that’s the root cause behind why roughly 70 percent of these efforts fail to reach their stated goals. In this conversation, he walks through The Gunter Group’s definition of digital transformation, the readiness work that most organizations skip, and why the technology itself is rarely the hard part.

WHAT WE COVER

Why digital transformation is a continuous effort, not a project
Matt defines digital transformation as an intentional, ongoing effort to move an organization toward an aspirational future state by improving both the customer experience and the business model. He argues the biggest mindset shift leaders need to make is treating this as continuous improvement, not a checkbox initiative with a single accountable owner and an end date.

Why intention and investment alone don’t produce results
Roughly 70 percent of digital transformation efforts fail to reach their original goals. Matt explains why that number holds steady across industries: organizations invest in the initiative without doing the readiness work to prepare people for a new way of working at scale.

The most common ways organizations get stuck
Matt walks through recurring patterns he’s seen across clients, treating digital as a one-time project instead of an ongoing commitment, assuming the work is primarily about the underlying technology rather than customer and business outcomes, and what he calls “corporate trench warfare,” where business and IT stakeholders blame each other for stalled progress instead of working from shared goals.

A real example of what turning it around looks like
Matt describes an education-sector client whose digital enrollment experience felt disconnected from its front-end brand, creating confusion and eroding trust with families. Reorganizing teams around the digital experience and testing changes incrementally with real customers turned a negative experience into a meaningful improvement in both customer trust and business outcomes.

Where to start if your organization is stuck
Matt’s advice is to start within your own span of control rather than waiting for a full enterprise mandate. Meaningful progress on digital transformation doesn’t require alignment across the entire organization on day one, it requires identifying where you can improve the experience for the customers already in front of you.