Mature or immature? What the digital industry is missing in the race for transformation

May 29, 2025 | min read

Fernando Henrique Silva

Apps had existed for years before the iPhone came along in 2007, but until then their value had not been truly understood or actualised.

Offering a simple user journey and adding tangible value, Apple disrupted the status quo — creating a shift in consumer behaviour. By demonstrating a significant enough impact, the iPhone unlocked the transformation of the mobile phone from being a mode of contact to becoming a mode of entertainment.

The digital industry faces similar hurdles to those of the early apps: despite seemingly being a mature market, it often struggles to properly articulate value. When it comes to new technologies such as AI, there’s work to be done in connecting people with the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ in order to drive real, permanent change. Without it, technologies that have the potential to really transform businesses and drive industry growth can end up languishing as little more than buzzwords.

What should transformation deliver?

To be successful, digital transformation must deliver across three core pillars: value, people and processes.

Creating value comes from focusing on real use cases and the tangible impact for a business, rather than just adopting tech for tech’s sake. While transformation takes time, and a long-term vision is essential, short-term wins are needed to gain momentum and maintain buy-in.

Transformation is ultimately driven by behavioural change, and any successful initiative must shift or influence the way people do things — whether it’s how to pay for something or ways of working. Today, people’s expectations are fast-evolving, and corporations need to close the gap between how quickly users want new products and experiences and how fast they can be launched.

Processes, while outwardly the least exciting element, can enable people to deliver value. The right tools are those that empower teams to deliver, rather than constrain them. Through training and upskilling, organisations can unlock the full potential of their people.

What does success look like in the future?

Today, the reality is that many corporates are not ready to raise real problems and adapt quickly. From silos to power disputes, there is often a lack of autonomy and accountability. In many cases, existing processes have been created to avoid exposure to failure rather than to drive progress. In contrast, this is where we see digital natives, such as FinTechs, thrive: they are ready to learn fast and fail fast too.

Now, the explosive potential of generative AI means that we are potentially going to experience the biggest change in society since the advent of the internet. In the digital age, change is happening faster than ever: while it took around 30 years for internet usage across society to grow from zero to 60%, it took just weeks for ChatGPT to gain millions of users.

None of us can predict exactly where AI will take us, but there can be no doubt that it is set to revolutionise many aspects of our lives — not only the way we work, but how we communicate, shop and spend our time.

In today’s landscape, speed has shifted from being a nice-to-have to an absolute requirement. Rather than moving at the pace of business and internal processes, organisations must keep up with the pace of tech and rising consumer demands.

In the digital transformation space, we must focus on prioritising ROI through bold, high-impact initiatives — and doing so with urgency. Transformation is never truly complete: the winners will be those who treat it as an infinite game, driven by continuous evolution.