Digital Transformation ™
Originally posted on LinkedIn on 8 March 2025.
I’ll admit, I can be a bit pedantic about language. I like to pick words and their meaning apart, question inconsistencies, and call things out when they don’t quite fit. It’s a blessing and a curse.
Which brings me to a slight rant on "Digital Transformation".
It’s 2025. Is there a single business or sector that hasn’t been digitally augmented in some way? Yet, we still see companies talking about their digital transformation as if it’s some grand, upcoming shift.
We’re not trapped in a maze of clerks drowning in paperwork, filing cabinets stretching endlessly around them. That world is gone. If a company is only now "going digital", it’s not transforming – it’s catching up.
That hasn’t stopped consultancies from selling "transformation roadmaps" and "digital playbooks" as silver bullets. But let’s be honest - most of what gets branded as digital transformation is just running a business sensibly in a digital world.
Moving workloads to the cloud? The value was actually once more clear-cut, but let’s just say it’s merely modern infrastructure. Replacing an old ERP system with a new one? Necessary, perhaps, but hardly a reinvention of how the business works.
The problem isn’t that companies change – it’s that we keep dressing up what should be continuous evolution as something monumental. Instead of calling it "Digital Transformation", maybe we should think of it as #Kaizen – continuous refinement and adaptation. And for all intents and purposes, that should just be considered **#BAU*.