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Run your transformation as well as you run your business
3-minute read
December 9, 2025
Transforming your business could be the most valuable revenue generator your company has. Yet many organizations approach a transformation with a project mindset – a major miscalculation that blunts the realized value.
Companies need to treat their transformation the same way they would a new business unit in their organization. The distinction matters: projects have end dates; businesses have P&Ls.
To help ensure that a transformation delivers value that can be measured on the bottom line, companies need a transformation office (TO). It will manage and orchestrate your transformation initiatives, keep them on track and maximize the value of your investment. And it could give you your biggest business breakthrough.
What’s driving transformation now
At Accenture, we've run hundreds of transformations across industries. In 2022, we partnered with Brightline to analyze how company transformations were evolving. Revisiting this work in 2025, we've found that while the challenges facing businesses are broadly similar, the shape, speed and scale in which these drivers have become a reality are drastically different. Now, five drivers in particular are impacting the success of transformation programs.
01
Emerging technologies
What we’re seeing: The emerging technologies our 2022 research identified are no longer innovative experiments. As we head into 2026, generative AI is transforming workflows and decision-making, quantum computing is entering strategic planning, and edge technologies are redefining real-time operations.
What it means: Organizations need the guidance of a transformation office to make tough investment decisions that will simultaneously reduce tech debt while investing in new capabilities.
of CXOs agree that we are entering a new era of process transformation with AI agents and Agentic AI1
02
Quest for efficiency
What we’re seeing: Efficiency, once synonymous with just cost-cutting, is now measured by how well leaders orchestrate portfolios and create value across the enterprise. As efficiency increases, organizations must determine whether they bank the value or reinvest: Reinventors are able to do both.
What it means: A transformation office needs to be a connective tissue for a consistent, expanded, and measurable definition of value that resonates across the business, finance and technology functions.
of organizations are already increasing automation. The focus is on more than cost-cutting. 67% of leaders view AI as more beneficial to revenue growth than cost reduction2
03
Evolving customer expectations
What we’re seeing: Customers expect more, faster than ever and 79% of CxOs are very likely to or are already adapting products and services based on evolving customer preferences.3
What it means: Personalization, instant responsiveness, and transparency are table stakes. Trust is the differentiator for leading organizations. Transformations need the customer at the center and the agility to pivot focus, funds and resources to respond to changing customer demands.
of CXOs say their leading strategic priority is adapting resources to evolving market changes and customer priorities4
04
Economic and geopolitical challenges
What we’re seeing: Ongoing wars, tariffs, inflation and geopolitical shocks are drastically changing all components of the value chain across industries.
What it means: Transformation portfolios need to be recalibrated at least quarterly. The executive in charge needs to be the orchestrator for operational, commercial, people and technology resiliency amid new realities.
of C-suite leaders agree that the level of change they experience has accelerated since the beginning of the year and 84% expect it to increase over the next six months5
05
Talent and skilling gaps
What we’re seeing: Organizations are still assessing the talent they need in the age of AI. Digital fluency is now expected across every role within an organization, not just IT, and companies must optimize their vendor ecosystem to balance capabilities, cost and availability.
What it means: Transformation offices need to partner with HR to influence the workforce strategy: redefining talent pipelines, empowering change and embedding learning across the enterprise.
of CXOs say they are actively preparing their workforce for agentic AI. 75% admit the pace of change is moving faster than their ability to prepare and train their workforce6
Five ways to make your transformation successful
We’ve analyzed our transformation engagements to identify what leading organizations are doing to negotiate these tensions. And we’ve identified the key questions executives need to consider to elevate their transformation to an expansive reinvention.
1. Vision
Transformation is no longer an episodic, time-bound investment. Leading companies instill new strategies and cultures that shape long-lasting mindsets and behaviors for continuous change. It's not a project with an end date: it's a permanent capability.
- Do our leaders share a clear vision of success and understand what's critical to succeed?
- Can leaders independently articulate and cascade the vision, strategy and approach?
- What happens when the vision meets quarterly pressure?
2. 360° Value
Organizations are establishing common definitions of value beyond just their P&L to create holistic, shared outcomes that focus on overall performance. They continuously evaluate their business across run, grow, and transform dimensions for internal and external transparency. Value is financial, operational, experiential and human.
- Is the business clear on the transformation value proposition?
- Is there a clear link between how the project's value will support business unit and enterprise goals?
- How will we use common methods and governance to measure value consistently through the entire project lifecycle?
3. Governance
When transformation implements an extra layer of governance, it saps speed. Enterprise governance cadences and TO forums must be rationalized and interwoven to streamline decisions through one unified enterprise governance model. Less is more when it comes to decision-making bodies.
- What governance structure and standard will set the transformation up for long-term success without creating bottlenecks?
- How will we continually shape and prioritize the roadmap as initiatives start, stop, and pivot?
- Who has the authority to make real-time decisions?
4. Integration
Maximizing transformation impact requires critical thinking around the enterprise operating model. Companies must clarify how existing constructs will interact with the TO and institutionalize new ways of working. Integration isn't an afterthought: it's the architecture.
- How will we manage an integrated roadmap that flexes for various stakeholder groups?
- What toolkit will ensure coordination across risks, issues, dependencies and decisions?
- How do we prevent the transformation from becoming an island?
5. Talent
A transformation might be a largely internal project for a company but the value at stake puts it on the same level as most major externally-facing investments. It needs to be staffed accordingly. A transformation, given its complexity, needs to be run by people who have the experience and ability to have tough conversations about where the business needs to grow.
The transformation organization is shifting from a temporary structure with hand-selected resources to a hub-and-spoke model. And the best transformations are built on cross-business networks.
- What are our standards for change management and adoption measurement?
- How will we equip leaders as change agents versus passive sponsors?
- Are we putting our best people on the transformation and creating opportunities for their career growth?
The biggest breakthrough for your business
Your transformation represents the largest value creation opportunity in your portfolio. Treat it that way. Staff it that way. Govern it that way. Measure it that way. And build a transformation that will feel like your biggest business breakthrough.
Additional contributions from Ben Touchette, Transformation Office managing director
Sources
1-6: Accenture's Pulse of Change, May-June 2025, n=2,973