You didn't transform. You just bought software

I'm going to need everyone to stop using the word digital transformation because it's not transforming anything if you're just implementing software. I've been done with this word but I am so done with it. I spend my entire day talking to digital transformation teams that are simply talking about the same broken processes, dirty data, and bad culture that they're trying to cover up with new technology. I talk to CEO, CTO, CIOs every single day that are like AI and automation are our 2025 strategic initiatives. Full stop. And I'm over here like well Richard, that is a sentence, not a strategy. So let's break this down. First and foremost, automation is not transformation. Please hear me, let that sink in when I say that. Yes, automation is an awesome tool. It makes you faster and more efficient, but if the thing you're automating is broken, then you're just going to fail faster. You can automate a toilet flush, but if the plumbing is bad, you're still in deep shit. The second thing is AI is not going to fix a siloed organization with bad data. It's just not. It's going to make it worse. New tool, same silos, same bad results. Technology does not magically make your teams collaborate. If you slap the fanciest AI on two teams, finance and procurement that don't talk to each other, there is just going to be more siloed results because they're not marching in the same direction. Alignment of the organization beats automation every single day of the week. And the last one I always see is inefficient processes. If you can't map out your process from end to end and analyze it, you have absolutely no business looking at a new technology, not even process mining tools. Yes, can you digitize inefficiency? Could you bring in Celonis to mine your processes? Absolutely, but you'd be throwing money off the roof because you as an organization don't even understand the process that you're trying to get the system to mine. That's backwards and a really terrible investment. If your approval process requires six emails, three wet signatures, a prayer and a covered wagon, then you have a lot bigger problems that you need to fix that technology is only going to magnify. None of those things are digital transformations. They are using technology to fix lazy leadership. Organizations like these, and sometimes they don't like when I tell them this, but I'm always going to tell them the truth because that's my job. They need to focus on things like operational discipline and get rid of the digital transformation because they're not ready to transform anything yet. They need to get a foundation before they're ready to look at anything like automation or AI. Redefine your language. Process optimization, system integration, data driven operation and decision making, workflow we design. Those are the types of things that you can be utilizing your technology to focus on. And then you can move to the next level that is innovation. But until you have that, you might as well build a house on water because it's not gonna stand up. Then you can move to terms that actually mean something. Again, not digital transformation. Try things like AI ready infrastructure, architecture, operational intelligence, process intelligence, automation support decision making. Those are actually focused where we take our fancy reports and turn them into results. Because you have could have the fanciest reports in the universe, but if your plumbing is broken as an organization, you're going to get shitty results.