I have spent nearly twenty years helping businesses create value digitally, and here is my confession: I have never really believed in "digital transformation".
The phrase feels passive, something done to an organisation rather than by it. Too often it involves expensive consultants delivering impressive strategies and leaving before the hard work begins. Consultants can bring real insight. Internal teams have to lead.
Across very different environments, from agile scale-ups to the FTSE 100, from LLP partnerships to private-equity-backed businesses, I have noticed the same thing. Agility and pace do not depend on size, sector or ownership. They depend on clarity, decisiveness and, more often than not, courage.
Organisations with clear direction will use AI to scale rapidly. Those without clarity will only scale their confusion faster.
An ending, said out loud
More than a decade ago, at RELX / Reed Business Information, the chief executive made a bold decision. We declared that we would no longer be a publishing company dependent on advertising revenue. At the time RBI was the world's largest B2B publisher, running hundreds of magazines. Saying openly what we were no longer going to be shocked our own teams and the wider market. It was also the thing that made the change real. RBI moved to data-driven services, launched new digital products and found sustainable growth.
Ten years on, that kind of courage is still rare, even when the signs are obvious. Many businesses push digital, product and technology initiatives without letting go of the models those initiatives are supposed to replace. They prioritise the technology instead of confronting the harder problem: internal clarity and nerve.
AI does not change this. It amplifies it.
AI is accelerating everything, and rather than making clarity and courage less important it makes them more so. Organisations with clear direction and decisive internal leadership will use AI to scale rapidly. Those without clarity will only scale their confusion faster.
Real digital success is rarely about the technology. It is about declaring what your business will no longer be, even when that feels risky. Sometimes courage means stepping backwards for a while, dismantling models that are profitable but unsustainable, to make room for what comes next.
Three things I have learned
- State your endings clearly. Digital courage means saying openly what you are no longer going to be.
- Own the change internally. Advisers can support it. They cannot lead it.
- Accept going backwards to go forwards. Temporary discomfort is often the price of long-term growth.
Having led digital value creation across several roles and sectors, I have come to think that digital leadership has little to do with technology. It is courageous clarity and decisive action. The challenge is not repeating past successes; it is having the nerve to define what is next. I would choose digital courage over digital transformation every time.