Avoiding digital transformation detours

If you are a little bit FOMO about the digital transformation of your business, you are not the only one. The “tradition” of how things are done is rapidly changing in this day and age, so how should you transform your business, you ask yourself?

Brick, paper, scissors: the classic way of doing business

Emergent things that earn their name are there to stay. The term digital transformation originated in the late 1990s to early 2000s, as businesses and researchers began to recognize the profound impact of digital technologies on the public sector, industries, and society. While the phrase itself became widely used in the 2010s, its conceptual roots go back a bit further. In the nineties, the internet boom and the rise of enterprise software (like ERP systems) pushed companies and organisations to digitize basic processes. The academic and business literature started exploring how digital tools could change business models and value creation, and the new term was born—the digital transformation.

Not so long ago, businesses and organisations were mainly built with bricks and mortar and run on paper trails— contracts, receipts, memos stacked in filing cabinets. It was a world that felt solid, tangible, and reliable. But then came scissors, the sharp, slicing edge of digital disruption — startups with cloud-native models, tech giants redefining customer expectations, and algorithms replacing decades-old decision trees. In this version of the game of “Brick, Paper, Scissors,” businesses discovered that paper gets cut, bricks get bypassed, and only those who learned to play could survive.

That induced some fear in both businesses and the public sector—a fear that, without jumping on the bandwagon of digital transformation, they will miss out on their competitive advantages or fail to serve the public's needs.

Analog jobs to be done: when the task's end isn’t met

When I was about to move to another city for work, I prepared for my first visit by finding a couple of apartments for rent on a popular digital marketplace while sitting back home in my chair with a laptop. I arranged several apartment viewings via messages and more or less knew what to expect because I saw the photos and read descriptions. When I got to the city, I easily found all the venues because I used interactive maps on my smartphone to get around. By lunchtime, I had signed the contract with my new landlady. She filed the tax with her e-citizenship account, and everything was ready for my residence registration. Digital transformation at its best. 

I went to the residence registration office on a rainy day, a couple of days after I moved, carrying the photocopy of the contract in a plastic folder under my arm and the reassurance that this would be a breeze. When my number was called out, the young clerk glanced at my papers, typed something on her computer, smiled politely, and said: “I see in the system that the tax was filed for your rent, so that’s fine.” I smiled back, hoping we were done; however, the clerk continued, “But, in order to register your residence, I need the original signed contract…”

That day I realised that the true digital transformation meant rethinking the rules altogether—integrating bricks with clicks, digitizing paper without losing trust, and using scissors not just to cut, but to craft something new. The winners weren’t those who played the old game better. They were the ones who reimagined the game itself.

That last mile to digital transformation 

What once felt like structure started to feel like friction. But still, without cultural readiness or operational alignment, there is no real transformation, and both companies and organisations at one end and their clients and customers on the other could find themselves overwhelmed and frustrated, to say the least. Transformation isn’t just adding new tools — it’s rewiring the way organizations think, act, and connect. The real challenge isn’t just about building digital services — it is about bridging analog expectations with digital possibilities. 

It’s tempting to think of digital transformation as a tech project, a new system rollout, a dashboard, or an app. But the reality is more human, more cultural than technical. It’s about aligning policies with capabilities, empowering employees to make judgment calls in new contexts, and rethinking how services are delivered in a world where expectations are shaped by the likes of Google, Amazon, or Wolt. This alignment should go beyond implementing the tools, it should make that social transformation towards adoption of the digital novelty. Otherwise, the organisations and their users can end up stuck somewhere between the two worlds, with frictions emerging from the loose ends. In the end, the future isn’t digital or analog, it's a seamless experience. But rest assured, if your organisation struggles with such challenges, they are solvable. 

Book a meeting with one of our representatives so we can see together how we can help your organisation in its respective journey to digital transformation.