Unlocking Our Digital Future: A Straight‑Talk Guide to Digital Transformation

I’ve spent the last couple decades helping smart, well‑funded companies avoid stubbing their toes on digital transformations, drawing on a front‑row seat to both triumphs and near‑misses. When digital journeys do derail, the pattern is almost always the same: big ambitions, slide decks that are sharper‑than‑necessary, and… six quarters later… {Sponge Bob meme}, a disappointing line item in the budget review.  Research suggests about 70 % of transformations stall or underperform [1].  I refuse to let that number claim you. And with global spending on digital transformations projected to top $3.7 trillion by  the end of 2025 [2], the stakes, and the upside, are impossible to ignore.

Inspired by Keith Cunningham’s bumper‑sticker wisdom in The Road Less Stupid (LOVE this book!), I’ve distilled each lesson here into a “laptop sticker.”  Picture some advice you’d actually peel and slap on your MacBook lid: short, punchy, essentially a “THIS”, along with a summary of behaviors or things to avoid.  This can help you share the key points made here with others and have them thank you for it. And you can always share a link to this blog! 

Below is my no‑fluff, first‑person field guide to doing digital transformation the right way.  Each section starts with a quick explainer, why the topic matters, the red‑flag indicators or warning signs you can watch for, and the winning behaviors that separate success stories from cautionary tales.  Let’s get started!  

1 – Nail the “Why” Before You Touch the “What”

Why this matters
Projects that start with technology instead of purpose almost always pivot, stall, or get shelved.  Analyst surveys rank unclear goals and shifting scope among the top reasons digital programs fail [3].

Leading indicators?
Endless “discovery” workshops, requirements that mutate weekly, and a budget pitch that leans on adjectives (“innovative!”) more than numbers.

Behaviors that win
I begin every engagement by asking the executive and/or project team one question: “How will we know this worked?”  If the answer isn’t measurable, e.g. a higher NPS, 20 % faster order fulfilment, new‑revenue run‑rate, etc., we’ll keep sharpening the answer until it is.  Vision first, tech stack second.  You need to understand why you’re doing this in the first place – what is the purpose that needs a vision?  And what are the data points that prove it? Advice: Frame success in a language your CFO loves; ROI stories keep projects alive when the next budget cycle rolls around.

Here it is on a laptop sticker:  “Purpose first, platform second.”
Keep technology decisions tethered to measurable business outcomes and you’ll prevent scope creep before it starts.

2 – Put Leadership on the Hook (In Writing)

Why this matters
Transformation is a contact sport; the C‑suite must play on the field, not cheer from the luxury box. Initiatives with active executive sponsorship are about 1.5 × more likely to succeed [4].

Indicators you’re in trouble
Steering‑committee meetings keep getting bumped, key execs send proxies, and project‑status slides rarely make it past middle management.

Behaviors that win
Ask leaders to sponsor specific deliverables and show up to sprint reviews.  Have them sign a visible charter with KPIs attached to their performance goals.

Here it is on a laptop sticker: “Sponsorship beats spectatorship.”
Visible executive skin in the game turns transformation from an option into a mandate, and keeps calendars cleared for progress.

3 – Treat Culture Like Version‑Zero Infrastructure

Why this matters
Technology can be purchased; cultural change must be earned.  Multiple studies rank culture and change‑management as the #1 predictor of success [5].

Red flags
Teams celebrate hero firefighting over experimentation, training budgets get raided first, and pilot proofs-of-concept slow down or stop when security insists on bringing existing process or production gates into the new system.  Do you get challenged to produce a SOC 2 evidence pack before you can spin up a sandbox?  If you ever hear “That’s not the way we do it”, you’ll know cultural resistance is kicking in.

Behaviors that win
Tell the story – explain the why repeatedly.  Reward curiosity and celebrate small experiments, even the messy ones – “Fail Fast” and “What Did We Learn” in equal measure.  Fund training – digital literacy is everyone’s job title now.

Here it is on a laptop sticker: “Culture eats containers for breakfast.”
Peter Drucker’s original quip was “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”  In the Kubernetes era : even the best container platform can’t outrun an organization that rewards firefighting over learning.  Address incentives, trust, and safety before you roll out the new tools.  Or the tech will take on the same bottlenecks.  Shape the mindsets before you shape the microservices; culture sets the true speed limit on your transformation.  Bake security into that culture from day one by embedding security engineers into the same squads as Dev and Ops – turn reviews into real-time collaboration instead of an 11th-hour action (shift-left!)

4 – Build Momentum with Quick Wins

Why this matters
Big‑bang launches magnify risk.  Organizations that deliver incremental value with agile methods see around 22 % faster time‑to‑market [6].  Steady wins the race – build on your successes.

Warning signs
Eighteen‑month roadmaps with no user impact for the first year.  Daily stand‑ups where “nothing to demo” becomes a running joke.

Behaviors that win
Pick a pain point you can solve in 90 days: automate a manual report, spin up a self‑service portal, or deploy a containerized pilot.  Ship it, brag about it, measure impact, iterate.  Success won at a small scale earns trust for future, larger moves.

Here it is on a laptop sticker: “Ship small, learn fast.”
Small releases create tight feedback loops and build trust that funds the bigger bets ahead.

5 – Data Is the New Boardroom Currency

Why this matters
Decisions anchored in anecdote age poorly.  Data‑mature companies can make decisions up to three times faster than peers [7].

Indicators you’re guessing
Executive debates framed as “I feel” rather than “the dashboard shows,” KPIs living in siloed spreadsheets, metrics updated quarterly.

Behaviors that win
Instrument everything.  Define leading and lagging KPIs, then make them visible – hallway monitors, weekly digests, Slack shout‑outs.  When the data sings, the funding follows.

Here it is on a laptop sticker: “In God we trust; everyone else brings data.”
Metrics replace opinions and make performance conversations blissfully objective.

6 – Pick Tech That Won’t Lock You In

Why this matters
Lock‑in is expensive to escape. Gartner predicts that 60 % of organizations will incur unexpected cloud‑exit fees by 2027 [8].

Early warning signs
License terms longer than an annual report, POCs that only run in one hyperscaler, or platforms requiring proprietary tooling for basic ops.

Behaviors that win
Open + portable beats closed + convenient.  Lean on open‑source foundations like SUSE Linux Enterprise, Rancher Prime, SUSE Virtualization, Security and Observability.  Run workloads where they make financial and regulatory sense.  Automate everything (IaC, CI/CD, policy‑as‑code) so environments are reproducible and auditable.

Here it is on a laptop sticker: “Portable or bust.”
Open, portable stacks future‑proof your investment and keep every exit door unlocked.  They’re also easier on the wallet: shedding license lock‑in and rightsizing workloads can free up 20‑30 % of run‑rate costs for innovation [9].

7 – Invest in People—It’s Cheaper Than Failure

Why this matters
Skills gaps are cited in about four out of ten failed digital initiatives [3].  A fully‑loaded Kubernetes engineer costs less than rebooting a program.

Leading indicators
Contractors outnumber employees in key roles, staff dreads platform upgrades, and onboarding a new hire feels like a hazing.

Behaviors that win
Budget for certifications, online academies, and mentoring.  Rotate staff through shadow projects.  Bring in external experts strategically, but build internal muscle – because owning the knowledge is the ultimate hedge against vendor churn.

Here it is on a laptop sticker: “Skills pay the bills.”
Upskilled people turn tools into advantages and keep transformation momentum alive.

Putting It All Together

Digital transformation isn’t a one‑and‑done campaign, it’s a repeated cycle.  The best we hope for is not to stack them up, where resources are competed for – further hampering your potential for success.  Lead with an outcome, guard your culture, iterate quickly, let data drive decisions, keep tech flexible, and fund talent like you mean it.  Do that, and you’ll dodge the 70 % failure statistic and build a business that thrives on change.

Ready to start?  Pick one sticky pain point, carve out a tight two-week sprint, and ping me when your quick win lands!  Success stories are the fuel for what comes “next”.  And if you need any expert help to make your journey easier, consider reaching out to the SUSE Sales, Services and Partner teams.  

If your cloud spend feels more like a mortgage and every feature request is answered with “wait for the vendor roadmap”, you might live in lock-in land!  Make sure you check out the next post “Break Free”, where we will dig into the true costs of being cornered, highlight the warning signs, and share some field-tested plays for regaining leverage.  Open standards, portable workloads, multi-cloud without the headaches.

Get ready to break free!

References

1. McKinsey & Company. Unlocking Success in Digital Transformations. 2019.
2. Trigyn. 2025 Digital Transformation Trends. 2025.
3. WalkMe. 39 Digital Transformation Statistics for 2025. 2025.
4. McKinsey & Company. The Keys to a Successful Digital Transformation. 2019.
5. Forbes Technology Council. Five Key Considerations for a Successful Digital Transformation Journey. 2024.
6. Deloitte. Measurements That Matter for Calculating Digital Transformation ROI. 2024.
7. McKinsey & Company. How Do You Measure Success in Digital? Five Metrics for CEOs. 2024.
8. Gartner (via Flexera). Top Cloud Trends: Unexpected Exit Fees. 2023.
9. Appinventiv. Digital Transformation Cost Optimization: A Complete Guide. 2024.