We're living through what economists call a "polycrisis" - simultaneous economic volatility, geopolitical tensions, supply chain disruptions, rapid technological change, and the dramatic working culture changes brought on by the covid pandemic. Things have been off for so long that when talking about getting back to normal, we don't even know what that refers to anymore.
In this environment, business leaders face a series of challenges - one of them being an intolerable choice: Invest in digital transformation to stay competitive, or preserve resources to weather the storm.
These companies know they need digital innovation to survive long-term, but many are paralyzed by the fear of investing in projects that might fail during these uncertain times. This often results in a dangerous middle ground where the business neither fully commits to transformation nor adequately prepares for digital disruption.
According to global management consulting firm McKinsey 70% of digital transformation projects fail. While this can rarely be attributed to a single culprit, it was established that one key component that decides between success and failure is this: project governance.
At the heart of the business is fulfilling the needs of the customer. During economic uncertainty, customer acquisition costs increase while customer loyalty becomes more fragile than ever.
Particularly in B2C businesses, customers are now making more deliberate purchasing decisions. They're comparing options more carefully, reading reviews more thoroughly, and switching brands more readily when experiences don't meet expectations.
This same applies to B2B businesses, with the fluctuations being slower but causing larger waves when loyalties switch. Companies are more price sensitive and careful with who they’re doing business with.
In this environment, customer experience isn't just a nice-to-have - it's critical.
Yet paradoxically, CX is often the first investment companies cut during uncertain times. This creates a dangerous downward spiral: reduced CX investment leads to customer churn, which reduces revenue, which leads to more cost-cutting, which further damages the customer experience, and ultimately leads to stagnation of provided digital services.
Most organizations approach digital transformation like a construction project from the 1950s; Rigid timelines, fixed requirements, and waterfall methodologies that assume a predictable world. When uncertainty hits, these approaches crumble.
One big revelation to be found here is this: The businesses thriving through current global chaos aren't the ones with bigger budgets - they're the ones with solid project management that maximizes assets invested and minimizes risk.
Economic uncertainty doesn't kill digital projects. Poor project governance does.
Recent studies suggest that the small portion of digital transformations that succeed during volatile times share three critical characteristics: risk-adaptive planning, value-first delivery, and stakeholder alignment systems.
The businesses winning during uncertainty aren't using traditional project management - they're using what we call "Resilience-Based Project Management" (RBPM). This approach, strongly linked with CX, has five core principles:
Before starting your next digital transformation initiative, ask yourself:
Every day you delay digital transformation and CX optimization, your competitors gain ground that will be hard to recover. Pursuing transformation with poor project governance wastes resources you can't afford to lose.
Businesses that thrive during global uncertainty won't be those with the biggest budgets or most innovative ideas. They'll have robust project management systems that deliver results despite external chaos and prioritize customer experience as their competitive advantage.
The question isn't whether you can afford to invest in digital transformation and customer experience during uncertain times. The question is whether you can afford not to, and whether your project management approach gives you the best chance of success while protecting vital customer relationships.
A robust project governance framework is appealing to any business leader, but can it be applied with fewer resources than those of large enterprises? Yes, it can; the same principles are applicable in more agile, less cumbersome contexts.
At Knowit, we have established project management practices that we adhere to, but we also recognize that each case is unique. We need to be flexible and apply only what is pragmatic. Risk management, change management, and swift value delivery to the market can be implemented at any scale.
With a well-functioning operational model, we can deliver value, whether it be in customer experience (CX), digital transformation, or AI. Ultimately, improved CX is the goal, and solid project management is the means to achieve it.