The hype cycle begins innocently enough. A Board member attends a conference where a vendor showcases a dazzling AI demo. The potential for multiplying workforce productivity at next to no cost seems almost… too good to be true.
Back at the office, excitement turns to confusion as the IT team struggles to get the chosen technology working predictably with real data.
The Board starts asking questions about the absence of improvement in business objectives. Six months later, the project, still in proof-of-concept, has not delivered any real operational improvements. However, by this point, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent, so the team can’t turn back.
Unexpected challenges occur causing unplanned Cloud and API cost blow outs . New systems conflict with existing and ageing infrastructure. The Security team identifies vulnerabilities in the system and stalls deployment until issues can be addressed. Meanwhile, the vendor offers vague updates and promises future fixes hidden somewhere on the roadmap.
This technical debt accumulates silently. The cutting-edge technology solution that impressed executives gradually becomes one more failed technology project while leaving another legacy yoke over the organisation’s shoulders.
This scenario repeats itself across boardrooms in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ), but according to transformation partner Fusion5, it needn’t be this way.
Making digital transformation deliver
Fusion5 has studied these challenges extensively with customers across various industries in Australia and New Zealand and developed a methodology to help CIOs close the gap between business ambition, tech vision and performance reality.
“Every CIO wants to lead purposeful digital initiatives that deliver actual business benefits,” says Sven Martin, Fusion5 Chief Executive – Australia. “But they’re also facing unprecedented challenges, a tsunami of new tools that every layer of every organisation is impatient to use, tight privacy and security requirements, and boards that want to see tangible improvements in business metrics they care about.”
Martin says Fusion5 begins each engagement by understanding the customer’s strategic outcomes, key business objectives and their priorities. Once understood and agreed, only then does the team start advising on technology options that can be demonstrated to improve business metrics like profit margins, workforce productivity, time to market, and customer satisfaction.
Why tech is only one ingredient of the success recipe
With over two decades of experience supporting Australian and New Zealand organisations, Fusion5 understands that successful digital transformation relies not just on technology, but also on strong business processes and a culture ready to embrace change.
“Digital transformation demands access to quality data and processes that can genuinely operate in a digital way,” says Kristy Brown, Chief Executive. New Zealand “There’s little value in having a digital front-end that simply triggers an email and reverts to a manual process behind the scenes.”
With our customers “We place just as much emphasis on supporting cultural change and uplifting digital business capability as we do on implementing and integrating systems.”
To add on to Brown’s perspective, Martin believes attaining value through technology requires an integrated combination of threads from technology, interoperability, data security, governance, business processes, and future thought on augmenting AI into team and role workloads. “CIOs want these augmented skills at the table with fewer partners to focus on the real opportunities at hand,” adds Martin.
Fusion5 deliberately avoids the common practice of using subcontractors to deliver components of a contract. Instead, it maintains in-house capability for both implementation and support—an approach it sees as critical to digital transformation success. This model eliminates the accountability gaps and complexity that often arise from managing multiple subcontractors and back-to-back agreements.
Brown advises that many organisations perceive digital transformation as being a relatively easy task, but soon realise that starting from scratch is a tall mountain to climb. Fusion5 has pre-built industry templates and cloud accelerators based on its extensive experience in those industry segments to help speed up implementation timelines and accelerate time to value.
Once the business processes and support from people are in place, the company helps customers choose technologies without the gruelling work of evaluating vendor claims against reality. The company provides research about emerging transformational technologies, particularly AI, focusing on genuine capability and practical applications that deliver business outcomes.
Finally, Fusion5 works with customers over the long term to ensure success. “Organisations continue evolving long after they initially deploy systems,” notes Brown. “We form long-term partnerships with our customers to ensure solutions adapt to changing business needs and strategic priorities.”
From Vision to Value – Making Strategy Stick
According to Fusion5 Australia’s Martin, a trap in using external tech consultancies is that strategy is often separated from implementation. Most CIOs will have experienced the pitch from a large consultancy where a global expert presents in a strategy session, but is never seen or heard from again for the entire duration of the project which means the strategic vision rarely survives contact with the realities of delivery.
True digital transformation demands more than technology alone, it requires business alignment, operational readiness, and a partner that understands how to turn ambitious ideas into measurable outcomes. That’s where Fusion5 focuses its efforts.
Fusion5 combines both strategy and implementation in unified teams. And as a solution-agnostic transformation partner, the company prioritises business needs over any specific platforms.
This methodology offers specific advantages to mid-market and enterprise organisations throughout ANZ: reduced implementation risk, faster time-to-value, and flexible engagement models that can be adjusted to different-sized organisations.
Bridging the gap between promise and reality
The Fusion5 team will be at the upcoming CIO Summit. Come and discuss how to improve your organisation’s digital transformation methodology and how to close the gap between vendor promises, IT team aspirations, and business outcomes. Find out more.
