Digital transformation isn’t just about fast tech, it’s about slow human change. Here are some lessons from war zones and the corporate world.

Change has never been so fast as today. Technology is advancing exponentially. AI will change every single business and every single job.

Really?

Technology might be changing faster than ever before, but the humans using technology are still the same as in previous generations — they are humans. Humans have the strange trait that they can get used to everything if there is no way around it, but they don’t change a single inch if they don’t have to.

Now, what does this have to do with digitization?

Let’s look at some real-life examples from Yonder, a B2B SaaS company delivering software for digital documentation. Easy sell, right? Well, not quite. Let’s look into it in more detail.

Life-and-Death: Change Is Fast

Imagine you’re a Ukrainian soldier, sitting in a trench in the Donbas. Enemy drones hum above your head, they can even follow you to your shelter. At the same time, enemy artillery is pounding your positions with old-school artillery dating back to the 1970s.

You must get those howitzers knocked out for good so that you can deal with the drones. If you don’t have endless artillery ammunition, you will need to think of something else than all-out counterstrikes.

So what did the Ukrainians do? They created various digital fire control systems, often based on open-source intelligence, WhatsApp for communication, and self-made iPad apps. Those digital solutions improve target acquisition, strike precision, and battle damage assessment.

Do you think they involved their procurement office to ask for permission?

Do you think they followed SCRUM or SAFe processes and groomed the sprints?

Do you think they waited for IT security clearance on the communication security of WhatsApp?

Hell, no. If you’re in the danger zone, your survival instinct drives your willingness to change and the speed of change. In such a situation, digitization is lightning-fast.

The Comfort Zone: Change Is Glacial

Change of scene. 2,000 km to the West, cozy and comfortable Switzerland. Some of our clients claim they can’t go live with our software, because the PDF exports of the documents don’t look exactly the same as the PDFs generated by their previous documentation system (that is, Microsoft Word or Adobe FrameMaker). Or they claim they cannot use the software operationally as a certain file type is blocked from being uploaded by their internal IT security. Or that they’d rather stick with the old app than switch to the much better new app because they are awaiting a good-to-go from their unions. Or or or.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m grateful for our customers. I don’t blame a single customer personally for their first-world problems. Because they aren’t in a trench in Ukraine, they are in Western countries with other priorities than same-day survival.

However, in the absence of existential threats, there are still plenty of opportunities to embrace change made possible by digital transformation, making life easier and processes more efficient.

But just as humans get used to almost everything, the good old West had plenty of time to get used to the comfortable lives of the last 30 years.