“For many enterprises, digital transformation can be the tail that wags the dog," Abernathy writes. "Business leaders often tell me they want to undertake some digital transformation project for its own sake. Cloud migration for the sake of having a combined, hybrid or multicloud environment. New dashboards for the sake of having a new 'digital board room' with which to analyze data. Moving to SAP S/4HANA to take advantage of the platform's advanced analytics, or just to be on S/4HANA in time for SAP's 2027 deadline.

"In these examples, the goal of the digital transformation project is, essentially, just to digitally transform. This is putting the cart before the horse. Digital transformation can't be for digital transformation's own sake. To get the most value out of your digital transformation project and make the endeavor worthwhile, you need to ask and answer a deceptively hard question: Why are we doing this?

"Articulate a clear reason and mission statement with a defined end goal for why you want or need to digitally transform and how this transformation will create value for your business. Just expecting "digital transformation" to generate that value out of nothing isn't going to work.”

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published by the Forbes Technology Council