Overcoming Resistance: The Human Side of Digital Transformation
Digital transformation often fails due to cultural resistance, misaligned leadership, and talent gaps. Learn how human-centred strategies, leadership buy-in, and continuous upskilling drive successful change in organisations, illustrated by Under Armour and IKEA case studies.
Why Overcoming Resistance Matters
Digital transformation failures are often less about the technology than they are as a result of organisational and human factors that weren’t taken into account or unwittingly ignored.
Typically this includes misalignment between business and IT objectives, coupled with ineffective change management and stakeholder engagement.
Fascinatingly there’s little direct connection between resources and transformation success.
No matter how much money is thrown at the problem, without addressing cultural resistance, talent gaps, and strategic misalignment, even ambitious and well-funded digital initiatives are prone to significant setbacks, hindering the realisation of strategic business outcomes.
While the rapid pace of digital change and ambitious national visions create immense pressure for rapid transformation, internal structures, existing skills, and cultural inertia are often not designed to keep pace, leading to strained resources, project delays, and suboptimal outcomes.
The hard yards of change
This week we look at transformation - the human side of digital, process and technology transformation - why they fail, and how to ensure that your teams ‘buy in’, and are brought along on the journey to give you the best chance of success at embedding transformation and building a stronger, more agile team in the process.
Most importantly though - don’t beat yourself up if it feels like things are starting to take a wrong turn. Everyone from agile startups as well as some of the biggest global companies struggle with the challenge of change.
To put it mildly, change is hard.
So this week we’re also taking a look at two global brands both approaching icon status for one reason or another and how they confronted the challenge of transformation. One from the point of view of a business restructuring as company finances started to flounder, and another looking at how to embed digital transformation into a traditionally physical retail business.
They make for interesting reading and I hope some of the insights provide valuable food for thought for your own transformation and change management leadership journeys.
How to Overcome Digital Resistance
Senior technology and business leaders can implement several key strategies to overcome resistance and embed sustainable transformation:
Embrace a Human-Centred Approach from Day One
Integrate change management and talent management into projects from inception, rather than treating them as an afterthought. This includes understanding and addressing employee fears about the unknown, potential job losses, and a lack of understanding regarding new digital tools and processes.
Secure Leadership Alignment and Buy-in
Ensure that the enthusiasm for digital transformation effectively trickles down from top-down mandates to the workforce. Projects with strong CEO and CIO influence, who understand the technological and business benefits, are more likely to succeed. Leaders should promote open, vulnerable conversations in safe environments.
Invest in Talent and Skills Evolution
Address critical skill gaps and the digital literacy divide by investing in continuous learning, upskilling, and internal growth programmes. This includes providing regular training and fostering internal growth opportunities to build and retain a strong digital talent pool. Some organisations are partnering with global tech giants to provide training and certification courses for their employees.
Foster a Culture of Continuous Innovation and Adaptability
Digital transformation is an ongoing mindset, not a one-off project. Cultivate a culture that embraces experimentation, encourages feedback, and rewards innovation. This enables rapid experimentation, continuous improvement, and adaptation to evolving business needs.
Promote Cross-Functional Collaboration and Break Down Silos
Bridge the disconnect between business and IT objectives. Establish cross-functional teams and empower a single product or service owner accountable for delivery and user experience. Organisational changes, such as creating Business Partnering teams with techno-functional skills, can ensure system requirements echo end-user needs.
Demonstrate Tangible Benefits and Quick Wins
Instead of focusing on full overhauls, adopt modular, agile, and stacked approaches to transformation. Showcase immediate benefits like improved productivity, reduced manual tasks, or cost avoidance to shift perspectives and build confidence.
Prioritise Data Foundations
Educate stakeholders that AI and advanced analytics are "redundant without good data". A robust data foundation and governance are prerequisites for successful digital transformation. A leading bank in the Gulf is investing in cross-functional data platforms to ensure data quality at the source.
Manage Expectations and Timelines Realistically
Counter the tendency to underestimate costs and over-promise impact. Provide pragmatic, detailed planning and tie fees to KPIs to ensure value realisation and performance accountability. Leaders should avoid making unrealistic promises and rushing into projects without clear objectives.
Empower Experts and Promote Vulnerability
Senior leadership should give experts permission to be vulnerable and create safe environments for honest challenge discussions, allowing them to admit knowledge gaps without fear for their jobs. This contrasts with the "silver bullet approach" of hiring one brilliant individual and isolating them.
Build Trust Through Sustained Relationships
Form strategic global-local partnerships and cultivate trust through sustained relationships. This is crucial for large-scale projects, and especially those with strategic importance or wedge areas that offer potential for competitive advantage.. As AI gathers in scale and adoption, industries like banking that are being rapidly reshaped by technology are trying to come to terms with what AI means - and how it can be used. Indeed some organisations that are ‘ahead of the curve’ in their data strategy are already finding that AI can reduce dependency on external suppliers as they can build in-house capabilities with AI.
Conclusion
By addressing the human and organisational dimensions alongside technological upgrades, organisations can navigate the complexities of digital transformation more effectively and unlock the potential of new technologies as the digital economy continues to evolve.
Success in digital transformation needs leaders (like you!) who understand that technology is only as powerful as the people who implement and use it.
Change Management Case Studies: The Human Element
Under Armour: In many ways the company’s transformation has been a ‘back to basics’ approach. In 2024 the company relaunched the Protect This House campaign that created 20 years ago in the early days of the firms success.
Case Study 1
Under Armour's People-Centred Turnaround
The Human Challenge Under Armour's decline wasn't just operational—it was deeply cultural. The organisation had become "overly siloed and bureaucratic with competing internal agendas," creating a fragmented workforce pulling in different directions. Teams had lost sight of their core purpose, with employees spread too thin across "too many products and initiatives." The company had developed an unhealthy dependency on external consultants rather than empowering internal talent.
Leadership's Human-First Response CEO Kevin Plank recognised that transformation required cultural change before operational fixes. His approach centred on and around people:
Unified Vision: Implemented "one agenda" to break down silos and align teams around shared goals
Employee Empowerment: Reduced reliance on external agencies by 70%, investing instead in internal capabilities
Clear Purpose: Reorganised teams around the company's largest revenue categories, giving each group clear ownership and accountability
Simplified Decision-Making: Eliminated unnecessary meetings and reports, focusing teams on activities that "directly contribute to selling more shirts and shoes"
The Human Cost and Commitment The transformation required difficult conversations and restructuring, with $70-90 million in charges. However, Plank's transparent communication about the 18-month timeline helped manage expectations and maintain employee buy-in during the challenging transition period.
Results Through People The cultural shift enabled faster innovation cycles (6-month product launches vs. 18 months previously) and improved collaboration. Teams now operate with clear "good/better/best" product hierarchies, and the successful StealthForm Hat launch demonstrated how aligned, empowered teams could deliver premium innovation quickly.
IKEA’s digital strategy includes embedding technologies like AR into stores
Case Study 2
IKEA's Cultural Evolution in Digital Transformation
The Human Challenge IKEA faced the classic digital transformation dilemma: how to evolve 160,000 employees across a traditional retail model while preserving the company's collaborative, entrepreneurial culture. The challenge wasn't just technological - it was getting people to "learn and practice new ways of working" that pushed them "outside their comfort zone."
People-Centred Digital Strategy Chief Digital Officer Barbara Martin Coppola built transformation around human elements:
Entrepreneurial Mindset: Repositioned all 160,000 co-workers as "entrepreneurs," giving them ownership over outcomes
Cross-Functional Empowerment: Created teams with shared "North Star" metrics, breaking down traditional departmental barriers
Learning Culture: Implemented a 70/30 approach: 70% of efforts scaling proven initiatives, 30% experimenting with new ideas
Workforce Evolution: Instead of replacing workers with technology, used automation to eliminate repetitive tasks and create opportunities for employees to explore "new and diverse roles"
Trust and Transparency IKEA addressed the human side of data concerns by creating a Customer Data Promise, emphasising transparency and customer control - principles that extended to how they communicated with employees about digital changes.
Human-Centred Innovation Rather than imposing top-down digital mandates, IKEA fostered innovation through:
Small-scale experimentation that allowed teams to "slice problems into chunks"
Permission to fail and learn from mistakes
External partnerships (like Space10) that inspired internal teams
Ongoing re-skilling programs that helped employees adapt to new roles
Measurable Human Impact The transformation succeeded because it put people first: 80% of customer journeys now start online, e-commerce tripled, and employee satisfaction remained high throughout the transition. The company maintained its cultural DNA while successfully scaling digital capabilities across its global workforce.
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Key Lessons for Change Leaders
Both cases demonstrate that successful transformation requires:
Cultural Diagnosis First: Understanding the human dynamics before implementing operational changes
Leadership Transparency: Clear communication about timelines, challenges, and expected outcomes
Employee Empowerment: Reducing external dependencies while building internal capabilities
Aligned Purpose: Ensuring all teams understand how their work contributes to larger goals
Patience with People: Recognizing that cultural change takes time and sustained commitment
The most successful transformations treat technology and operations as enablers of human potential, not replacements for human judgment and creativity.
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Simon Hardie is an author and founder of findexable - the digital analytics and insight platform. He co-hosts the Born to Disrupt podcast with Mingzulu and Disrupts
