Digital transformation may sound like a buzzword, but it has become a business imperative. Across industries, companies are under pressure to improve efficiency, scale effectively, meet rising customer expectations and keep pace with evolving regulations—all of which demand leading-edge technology.
Yet urgency alone isn’t enough. Without cultural alignment, strong governance and a clear purpose, technology upgrades rarely deliver lasting results. Below, members of Forbes Technology Council share strategies and policies that can help organizations turn digital transformation into measurable business impact.
1. Align Technology Change With Cultural Change
One key factor is aligning technology change with cultural change. When leaders invest in clear communication, reskilling and stakeholder buy-in alongside new tools, digital transformation moves from being an IT project to an organizational success. - Mohit Gupta, Damco Solutions
2. Focus On Quick ROI With AI
Digital transformation is urgent, but starting points are often unclear. Whether it’s the leadership team (CEO, CFO or CTO), deadlines, regulations or external market forces, something’s always altering plans. However, quick investments in AI for automation efficiency or fraud detection can save millions. During ERP rollouts, infrastructure modernization ensures continuity, justifying the investment despite external factors. - Jason Kurtz, Basware
3. Make Data The Core Of Transformation
One key factor is making data the core of the transformation—not just software or infrastructure. Success comes when teams invest in foundational data work: defining schema, ontologies, metadata, features and labels. This makes downstream automation, AI and decision workflows truly scalable and adaptive. - Karen Kim, Human Managed
4. Use AI At The Edge For Transparency And Control
AI is the ultimate digital transformation. AI at the edge isn’t just smart—it’s empowering. With real-time insights and remote control, industries gain visibility, agility and confidence like never before. AI transparency moves us from “what you don’t know can hurt you” to “what you understand can empower you.” AI at the edge provides greater transparency and control of remote sites. - Saleel Awsare, Lantronix
5. Align Technology With Operational Needs
In my experience, digital transformation succeeds when technology serves a clear operational need. For example, in high-speed digital semiconductor testing, aligning engineering and operations early was critical. Cross-functional teams ensured new tools delivered real performance gains (increased throughput, higher yields and improved quality), and that drove lasting impact across the organization. - Russ Garcia, Menlo MicroSystems
6. Build Trust Through Collaborative Development
The key factor for us is always collaborative testing, joint application development sessions with the various lines of business, and understanding upstream and downstream impacts that the automation brings. The successful outcomes of our latest digital transformation project had a lot to do with trust in delivering quality and in each other as a unified team. - Jane Mason, Clarifire
7. Start With What Customers Truly Need
Start with what customers truly need, not what you offer. Appreciate the plurality of their needs and segment them into the top three priorities. Focus on delivering outcomes that help them succeed and democratize access to value. - Subhanjan Ghosh, 720 Degrees Consulting
8. Focus On The User
Digital transformation cannot be successful unless it’s focused on the user. Focusing on user experience, getting iterative feedback and improving are the most critical strategies in all digital transformation successes. - Harneet Kalra, Ethos Life
9. Secure Commitment From Executive Leadership
Serious commitment from executive leadership is essential. Successful digital transformation requires a clear and compelling vision, as well as adequate resources to drive the change needed to achieve measurable outcomes over time. - Irina Osovskaya, AstraZeneca
10. View Transformation As A Strategic Shift
One key factor in successful digital transformation is viewing it as a strategic shift, not just a tech upgrade. In the travel space, we’ve seen the biggest wins when companies combine AI and automation with real changes in how frontline teams work—that is, when teams are empowered to make faster, more confident decisions (even under pressure) and when complex, repetitive tasks are automated. - Aviel Siman-Tov, Oversee
11. Engage Stakeholders With A Clear End Goal
Start with the motivating purpose and target end goal to engage all stakeholders who will be affected by, and can help enable, the transformation. A systems approach combined with clear communication focused on the end goal ensures coordinated, collective change management. - Caroline Chung, MD Anderson Cancer Center
12. Fuel Change With A Genuine Desire To Improve
The biggest driver of digital transformation is a genuine desire for change. When people feel the status quo is no longer acceptable, that motive power fuels vision, capabilities and roadmaps—and creates not just growth, but also meaning in work. I have come to believe transformations launched by mandate stall; those fueled by desire endure. - Omer Imtiaz, Salesforce
13. Apply The Pareto Principle
Remember the Pareto Principle. Here’s digital transformation’s 80/20 truth: Success isn’t about 100% tech adoption, but 80% of impact coming from 20% of strategic changes. Empower the 20% of change-makers and prioritize the 20% of initiatives that truly move the needle. It’s about smart focus, not exhaustive effort. - Mojeed Abisiga, DataGlobal Hub
14. Design Systems For Adaptability
In every successful digital transformation I have seen, the real differentiator was designing systems for adaptability instead of just delivery. When platforms are modular and governance-driven, they evolve, turning transformation into a lasting capability rather than a one-time project. - Sibasis Padhi, Walmart Inc.
15. Establish A Governance Framework From The Outset
One key factor in delivering a successful digital transformation is establishing a clear data and technology governance framework from the outset. Transformation initiatives often fail not because of the technology itself, but because of fragmented ownership, unclear accountability and lack of trust in data. - Umesh Chauhan, American Express
16. Start With Clean, Reliable Data
Garbage in, garbage out. I’ve seen that successful digital transformation really depends on starting with clean, reliable data and a clear view of your goals. You can have the best algorithms in the world, but if you’re feeding them junk, you’ll just make bad decisions at scale. Clean up the data first, then choose the tool that meets your needs. The sequence matters. - Gladys Kong, Azira
17. Deliver Quick Wins
Quick wins are essential. A clear vision is critical for any initiative, but great ideas die quickly in the face of daily demands in today’s lean organizational models. Maintaining focus for extended periods of time on any initiative is tough. Bite-sized, tangible successes achieved with a focused and protected team build momentum, energy and credibility, which in turn create more interest and engagement. - John Walsh, III, Red Summit
18. Connect Technology Outcomes To People Outcomes
Successful transformation happens when technology outcomes connect directly to people outcomes. I was part of a project in which redesigning data pipelines that served more than 7 million digital users not only saved $1.5 million in cloud costs, but also gave customers faster, more reliable experiences. Anchoring change in both efficiency and human impact is what makes transformation stick. - Vivek Venkatesan, The Vanguard Group
19. Build For Complexity From Day One
The most overlooked factor in digital transformation is building for complexity from day one. Too many initiatives fail because they stitch together tools that don’t scale. The most successful transformations I’ve seen have embedded automation and intelligence into core workflows—so systems don’t just digitize processes, they adapt and improve as the business evolves. - Harshith Vaddiparthy, JustPaid
20. Align Data And AI Strategy With Business Priorities
Digital transformation can stall without clear priorities. Data and AI help align stakeholders by identifying friction points like invoice disputes or fulfillment delays and correlating them to root causes, such as complexity in product or pricing structures. The takeaway: Aligning your data and AI strategy with your broader digital strategy doesn’t just support transformation—it accelerates it. - Prashant Motewar, Equinix
－
COUNCIL POST | Membership (fee-based)
Successful CIOs, CTOs & executives from Forbes Technology Council offer firsthand insights on tech & business.
－
This article was originally published on Forbes Technology Council on September 15, 2025