The Challenges of Digital Transformation

2022-08-17

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7 min read

TABLE OF CONTENT

The benefits of a company going through a digital transformation are focused around improving operations, creating efficiencies, providing better customer engagement and improving team morale. All of this leads to more success. However, businesses also face certain difficulties in this journey, and understanding them is essential if you want to overcome them.In 2018 alone, over $1.3 trillion was spent on digital transformation worldwide.Of that, over $900 billion was wasted.For this necessary clarity, today, we’re focusing on these challenges to provide you with a stable foundation to overcome these difficulties and succeed.

The problem is with how companies roll out transformation

CoachHub statistics show that 75% of businesses fail to achieve what they want with their digital transformation efforts. These numbers are staggering, yet so many of these businesses fail to realise the core of this issue.It is rarely so much the technology or software that’s being introduced to the company, but rather the issues with people utilising or accepting change coming from a lack of onboarding and attention to employee buy-in. Digital transformation should be used to hold the company accountable.Let’s say you invest and install an automated customer service management system. The software could be world-renowned, but if your staff isn’t trained, aren’t willing, or hold back from learning how to use it properly and efficiently, you’re not going to receive the intended results.

Employee adoption and behavioural changes

These are the main challenges businesses face when going through a digital transformation and what most companies overlook.It’s far too naive to start using new technology and operating methods and expect everyone to be onboard. You probably know someone in your business who’s been there for years and is known for being “stuck in their ways.”This kind of mindset among any or all your employees will inevitably cause problems with digital transformations, not necessarily the technology itself.There are, however, a few ways to overcome these challenges, but they all centre around one point.

Empowering your people with digital transformation

This could include;

Empowering their ability to adapt to new technologies
Empowering their willingness to undergo change
Empowering their enthusiasm toward new ways of working
Empowering their ability to continuously grow and learn.

All of these, of course, ties in with your company culture.Employees will resist change if you’re not investing time in nurturing this kind of culture within your company. Additionally, if you don’t spend time portraying any positive changes at all levels of the organisation, your employees won’t have tangible examples of how to manage and thrive in times of transformation.Giving people the impression that tech changes are happening due to poor performance, a company could create the image that people are going to be replaced with technology. Hurting worker morale is not what you want to do. It’s important to provide clear and concise information to all employees so they know what to expect and feel like they are part of the process.It’s all about perspective and approach.

Start defining your culture

While there’s an obvious cost consequence to failing a digital transformation of any degree, there are also plenty of other issues to consider. If you haven’t felt motivated to invest in your culture and collective company mindset, bear these issues in mind;

Sunk organisational efforts that led to wasted investment and low morale
Wasted time investments
Successful competition increasing their market share
Lower customer engagement
Lowered efficiency & productivity
Reduced innovation and development.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg.Instead of risking these consequences, spend time defining your company culture as open-minded, productive, and empowered. Coaching can help throughout the digital transformation process, so consider investing in business coaching for managers and employees throughout the company. Put the power in the hands of your people and give them opportunities to grow, scale, and better themselves, rather than trying to force them against their will to embrace change.

FAQ

Success in leading through change is measured by how quickly performance recovers and how effectively new behaviors are embedded across the organisation. 

This includes both early signals such as clarity, confidence, and decision-making and longer-term outcomes like engagement, retention, and productivity. Organisations that track both behavioral and business indicators are better able to understand progress, identify risks, and sustain performance beyond the initial recovery phase. 

Ultimately, successful restructuring is not defined by the new org chart, but by how quickly people adapt and how consistently they perform in the new environment.

When the change curve is not actively managed, organisations face compounding performance risks. These include slower decision-making, increased coordination costs, declining engagement and prolonged productivity loss. 

Over time, teams may revert to old behaviours, momentum fades, and change fatigue increases especially if multiple transformations occur in succession.
 
Each additional week spent in the dip increases the cost of disruption and delays the realisation of transformation benefits, making recovery slower and less effective.

Organisations shorten the change curve by actively supporting behaviour change at scale. This requires more than one-off interventions, it demands continuous reinforcement, alignment across leadership levels, and integration into daily work. 

Behavioural science shows that change only sticks when it is reinforced consistently and over time. Organisations that provide structured, ongoing support such as coaching, are better able to accelerate adaptation, reduce uncertainty, and restore performance faster. 

The goal is not to eliminate the dip, but to reduce its duration and severity.