When companies begin to pursue SI transformation, they often face a very practical problem: the relationship between investment and return is difficult to judge.
Many companies hesitate to accept or advance SI transformation not because they see no value in it, but because they cannot clearly see the ROI or determine what concrete benefits the investment will actually produce.
There is also another very real obstacle: too much upfront investment.
If a proposal begins by asking the company to purchase a large amount of expensive hardware and make a significant initial investment to build SI capabilities, it is easy to understand why executives and finance leaders may reject it immediately.
The reason is actually quite simple.
A company can still operate normally without SI today. With SI, the main difference is often higher efficiency and stronger capabilities, rather than the company being unable to operate without it.
So I do not want to criticize or dismiss executives or finance leaders, nor do I want to argue against their decisions.
In fact, I respect their position.
When they make decisions, they are not only considering the investment and return of SI transformation itself. They also need to consider the overall condition of the business. Faced with a proposal that requires major upfront investment while offering unclear short-term returns, caution is completely understandable.
What I do want to say is that when companies evaluate SI transformation, they should not look only at the numbers that can be calculated directly today.
Those numbers are absolutely real and difficult to argue with.
How much money needs to be invested?
How much efficiency can be improved?
How much workload can be reduced?
These are all questions a company must consider.
But at the same time, future industry trends and the additional value that SI may create should not be ignored.
Compared with simply calculating how much efficiency SI can improve, I usually think more about another question:
What can the company do once it has internal SI capabilities?
Can SI help the company follow industry trends more quickly?
Can it help identify potential new business areas?
Can it allow the company to build capabilities before certain future opportunities fully emerge?
Business growth is not only about expanding what already exists. Sometimes, gaining an early position matters just as much.
That is very important to me.
If none of this is considered, and the entire proposal is reduced to telling executives that “investing this amount will improve output by a certain percentage,” then the discussion does not go very far.
Because SI can easily become a very simple calculation in management’s eyes:
How much work can SI replace?
How many people can therefore be reduced?
How much payroll can ultimately be saved?
Once SI transformation is pushed in this direction, I believe the problem becomes much more serious.
Employees may see it as:
If SI is deployed, could I lose my job?
If the proposal may directly affect their positions, why would they actively support it?
Executives, on the other hand, may see a different problem:
If the company is investing this much money only to save some labor cost, is there really enough potential and profit upside to justify it?
If that answer is also unclear, they may not truly support the proposal either.
The result is a very awkward situation:
Employees oppose the initiative because they are worried about being replaced, while senior management also opposes it because they do not see enough potential or profit opportunity.
When almost no one across the organization can find a strong reason to support SI transformation, pushing it forward naturally becomes extremely difficult.
If SI transformation ends up being driven into that kind of situation, then I would even say:
It might have been better not to propose it in the first place.