Your Vendor Proposal Only Covers 30% of Your Digital Transformation. What About the Other 70%?
We’ve all seen it happen. The polished vendor proposal lands on the desk, detailing the fantastic new Technology platform, the seamless deployment, and the shiny new features. It looks great. The budget is approved. The clock starts ticking.
The problem? That proposal likely only covers 30% of what it takes to truly transform your business.
When we focus exclusively on the software deployment, we leave the other, arguably more critical, 70% of the effort entirely unfunded, un-resourced, and underestimated. This "invisible work" is where most large-scale transformations stall, exceed budget, or ultimately fail to deliver the expected ROI.
The Missing 70%: Where Transformation Really Happens
If you are only budgeting for the technology, you are leaving massive gaps in these four essential workstreams:
- Data Migration: This is rarely as simple as "copy and paste." It involves cleansing decades of legacy data, mapping complex fields, ensuring data integrity, and managing multiple cutover weekends. It's often the biggest technical and business risk.
- Process Design: Deploying new software on outdated, messy, or manual processes is a recipe for a very expensive version of the status quo. Transformation requires defining Future State Processes—a complete overhaul of how work gets done. This is strategic, time-consuming, and requires cross-functional business leadership, not just vendor consultants.
- Change Management: People don't resist technology; they resist being disrupted without preparation. This workstream is dedicated to shifting mindsets, communicating the Why, managing stakeholder anxiety, and ensuring the organization wants to use the new system.
- Training and Adoption: Training isn't just a quick webinar before go-live. Effective adoption requires role-specific training, creating champions, providing post-go-live support, and measuring actual usage to ensure the new system is actually delivering value.
The Real Cost of Underestimation
When these core workstreams are an afterthought, the results are predictable:
- Timeline Bloat: Data cleansing and new process design always take longer than anticipated, pushing out the tech deployment schedule.
- Budget Overruns: You end up scrambling post-go-live, hiring expensive contractors for emergency data fixes or urgent adoption campaigns.
- Low ROI: The system goes live, but users revert to spreadsheets and old workarounds because the change wasn't managed effectively.
The Strategic Imperative
Transformation isn't just about deploying software; it’s about preparing the business to use it effectively.
Next time you evaluate a vendor proposal, remember that the technology is the tool, but the other 70% is the engine that drives real business value. Ensure your internal roadmap and budget explicitly account for:
- Dedicated Data Leads
- Process Architects
- A robust Change Management team
- A long-term Adoption & Sustainment plan
What workstream do you find is most often underestimated in your projects? Share your experience in the comments!