Ranjith Kaippada , Managing Director , Cloud Box Technologies

While we hear a lot about organisations beginning their digital transformation journeys , Ranjith Kaippada at Cloud Box Technologies points out a myriad of organisational and other internal factors can grind them to a halt unless channel partners are pro-active .

Global research organisations have studied completed and stalled digital transformation initiatives from many angles and concluded that the reasons for failure are often non-technical . CIOs need to be aware of the multiple non-technical reasons that can ground digital transformation initiatives , often for no fault of theirs , and plan to find ways to work around the points of failure described below .

Limited funding

Many finance heads continue to look at technology and IT spending as an operational expense rather than one driving innovation and longer-term strategic benefit . Hence , when a digital transformation initiative is proposed it may be hard for the CIO to gather the total funding to complete the project .

Inability to gather sufficient funds to drive a digital transformation project also arises when financial decision making is siloed .

Inability to gather sufficient funds to drive a digital transformation project also arises when financial decision making is siloed and fails to see and apportion the benefits of digital transformation across the organisation . With such an approach , it may be difficult to justify sufficient funds and may require alternative routes for results .

The way forward is to justify expenditure for digital transformation with the business outcomes delivered . Many times , budgets are available with business heads and may require realignment and reprioritisation of the digital transformation initiative , along the business objectives related to that funding .

Delivery of timely business results and delivery of political benefits if wellarticulated , can also help to trigger sufficient levels of investment to mobilise the digital transformation initiative . Finally , CIOs need to be flexible in identifying and realigning with multiple funding opportunities that may exist across the organisation .

Breadth of skills

The successful roll out of digital transformation initiatives requires having multiple types of digital skill sets across the organisation . Some of these core skill sets include cloud migration and orchestration , digital architecture and platforms , data analytics , user experience and design , amongst others . Other than technical skills , teams also need to prepare themselves to

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