For executives tired of watching transformation budgets evaporate with nothing to show for it
The Wake-Up Call
ABN AMRO just deployed 25+ GenAI use cases in production. They're targeting sub-50% cost/income ratios by 2028. Meanwhile, most enterprises are still debating which AI framework to pilot.
But here's what the celebration misses: For every ABN AMRO success story, there are dozens of transformation graveyards. Companies that burned through millions chasing digital transformation, only to end up with expensive tech stacks gathering dust.
The pattern I've observed over 25 years is brutally consistent: Organizations rush into transformation initiatives without understanding the costly problem hidden beneath the surface. They focus on the technology. They obsess over the framework. They benchmark against competitors.
And they fail. Spectacularly.
The Interpretation
After guiding dozens of AI transformations, I've identified the cancer that kills these initiatives: The Execution Delusion.
Here's how it manifests. Leadership announces a bold transformation vision. Consultants arrive with frameworks. IT evaluates platforms. Budgets get approved. Pilots launch.
Then reality hits like a freight train.
The data is garbage. The processes are undocumented. The teams resist change. The ROI calculations crumble. The pilots never scale. The transformation dies a slow, expensive death.
Most consultants see technology adoption challenges. I see something darker: Organizations are solving the wrong problem entirely.
The most frequent questions I receive point to this fundamental misunderstanding consistently. They ask about AI frameworks. They debate automation platforms. They compare transformation methodologies.
Wrong questions. All of them.
The enterprise pattern is clear: companies are discovering that transformation isn't about technology selection. It's about organizational readiness. And most aren't ready. Not even close.
The Value Protocol
Here's the unsexy truth that transformation vendors won't tell you: Before you touch any AI framework, you need to map your decision flows.
Not your data flows. Not your process flows. Your decision flows.
This is the boring prerequisite everyone skips. And it's why they fail.
Consider what actually happens when companies implement transformation initiatives:
They discover their data quality is atrocious
They realize their processes are tribal knowledge
They find decision-making is distributed chaos
They uncover that nobody owns the outcomes
The expensive mistake happens when organizations try to transform without first understanding what they're changing from.
My experience with these frameworks reveals a consistent pattern. The companies that succeed don't start with technology. They start with three unglamorous activities:
Decision Architecture Mapping: Document who makes what decisions, with what information, under what constraints. If you can't map this in under two weeks, you're not ready to transform anything.
Data Quality Triage: Audit your data not for completeness, but for decision-usefulness. Most organizations discover 70% of their data is noise.
Process Documentation Reality Check: If your processes only exist in employees' heads, your transformation will fail. Period.
This isn't funny work. It won't make headlines. But it's the difference between transformation success and joining the graveyard.
The immediate tactical move an ambitious exec can take in the next 7 days: Conduct a Decision Flow Audit. Pick one critical business process. Map every decision point. Document the data required. Identify the decision owner. Time: how long does each decision take?
If this exercise takes more than 8 hours, you've just discovered why your transformation initiatives keep failing.
I know! It’s difficult to execute alone because you can't see your own blind spots. You're too close to the problem. Your teams are invested in the status quo. Your vendors have conflicts of interest.
I didn't build First AI Movers to write articles. I built it because companies were bleeding money on transformation initiatives that were doomed from day one. They were solving for technology when the real problem was organizational readiness.
A 15-minute conversation typically clarifies three things:
Why your current transformation approach is burning money without creating value
Where the specific readiness gaps are sabotaging your initiatives
What your 30-day diagnostic protocol should look like
This is why high-performers work with me. Not because I have better frameworks or fancier methodologies. But because I've seen this movie dozens of times, I know exactly where the bodies are buried.
The Next Steps
If you're tired of transformation theater and ready for transformation reality, let's have that conversation.
Book your 15-minute diagnostic call and let's identify which expensive problem is actually killing your transformation initiatives.
Because here's the truth: Your next transformation will fail. Unless you fix the execution gap first.
Let's make sure you're not another casualty in the transformation graveyard.
Dr. Hernani Costa
Founder & CEO of First AI Movers
Open Tabs
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