Organisations often fail to realise the full value of digital transformation because technology is implemented without fully understanding the operational problems it is meant to solve. According to Grant Phillips, the most successful solutions are developed close to real-world workflows, enabling greater adoption, reduced complexity and better business outcomes.
Organisations continue to invest heavily in digital transformation, yet many still struggle to achieve the outcomes they expected. According to McKinsey, around 70% of transformation programmes fail to meet their objectives, despite significant investment in technology.
For Grant Phillips, Group CEO of e4, the reason is both simpler and more complex than organisations realise.
“One of the biggest mistakes organisations make is assuming technology alone will solve a problem,” he says. “If a solution doesn’t fit the way people actually work, it becomes difficult to unlock its full value.”
Phillips believes many transformation projects begin with the technology rather than the problem. As a result, organisations implement solutions that function exactly as designed but fail to gain meaningful traction among the people expected to use them.
This challenge is particularly visible in industries such as financial services and property, where processes are often shaped by regulation, multiple stakeholders and longstanding ways of working. A platform may perform well in a demonstration environment, yet struggle to deliver the same results once it encounters the realities of day-to-day operations.
“The closer technology stays to the problem it is trying to solve, the more useful it becomes,” says Phillips. “When a digital solution is designed, it shouldn’t be an abstract concept tested in a sterile environment. It should be informed by real operational experience.”
Gartner predicts that 60% of supply chain digital adoption efforts will fail to deliver their promised value by 2028 due to insufficient investment in learning and development, reinforcing the point that technology only creates value when people are equipped to use it effectively. Phillips says this disconnect is responsible for many disappointing transformation outcomes.
Over the past two decades, this thinking has shaped the way e4 develops technology. The company has focused on solving practical challenges within the industries it serves and using those experiences to inform product development.
Many of the solutions e4 takes to market have first been deployed and refined within its own operating environment. The purpose is not to prove that the technology works in theory. It is to understand how it performs when faced with the same operational pressures, compliance requirements and competing priorities that clients experience every day.
The most recent example of this in action is DeceasedEstates, e4’s platform for estate administration. In South Africa, more than 100,000 deceased estates are reported annually, creating a process that involves attorneys, banks, insurers, SARS and the Master’s Office. While progress has been made in modernising parts of the system, estate administration remains heavily dependent on documentation, manual intervention and communication between multiple parties.
According to Phillips, the opportunity was never simply to digitise an existing process. “The real challenge was understanding where delays occur, where information gets stuck and where unnecessary administration creates frustration for the people involved,” he explains. “Once you understand the problem properly, you can design technology that reduces friction without disrupting the flexibility needed to manage complex estate matters.”
The lesson extends beyond estate administration. Across industries, organisations are becoming less interested in technology for its own sake and more focused on outcomes. They want solutions that fit naturally into existing workflows, reduce complexity and create measurable improvements for employees and customers.
That shift places greater responsibility on technology providers to remain close to the environments they serve. “There will always be new technologies, new platforms and new trends,” says Phillips. “The organisations that create lasting value are usually the ones that stay focused on the problem. If you understand that properly, the technology becomes much easier to get right.”
About e4
e4 is a technology company specialising in digitalisation. By understanding the complexity of a digital journey, e4 partners with its clients to provide innovative solutions that suits their unique needs. Using an omni-channel platform approach, e4 offers a range of digitally-inspired services as well as solutions.
Working across financial services, data and the legal sector, e4 understands the intricate requirements in these sectors, and uses its expertise to assist clients in effectively managing their businesses through digitalisation.
For further information:
Monica van der Spuy | GinjaNinja | M: +27 71 685 6476 | E: monica@ginjaninja.co.za
