Mobilise-First: Rethinking IT Transformation

SAP’s plan to end mainstream support for ECC by 2030 is one of the biggest shake-ups in enterprise IT in decades. The move to S/4HANA and a “clean core” architecture promises faster processes, greater agility, and seamless integration with emerging tech like AI. The benefits are clear. The path to get there isn’t. More than 75% of IT transformation projects still fail, a statistic that’s barely shifted in decades. The clean-core journey is particularly tough. Organisations must unravel years’ worth of customised workflows that have quietly kept the business running. Replacing them means rethinking core processes, breaking down silos, cleansing and migrating data, and retraining teams. Even when cloud-native alternatives exist, they often force a hard choice: standardise and lose unique functionality, or customise and risk undermining the “clean” in clean core.

The cost of failure

Even the most well-resourced organisations can struggle with the complexity and scale of SAP transformation.
Haribo attempted a massive SAP S/4HANA implementation in 2018. Upon go-live, the new system proved unable to handle their supply chain needs, resulting in severe distribution issues and empty store shelves. The organisation was forced to increase headcount to implement workarounds but still suffered a 25% loss in sales that year on top of increased costs.
Lidl spent over €500 million over 7 years attempting to replace its in-house merchandise management system with SAP. The company found that adapting its business to fit SAP’s logic was too complex and expensive, ultimately abandoning the project in 2018 with the statement “the originally defined strategic goals cannot be achieved with reasonable effort.”

The most common mistakes in IT Transformation

In 1998 VISION first worked with IBM to improve productivity in their personal computer division. That project cut the cycle time for change orders in half and substantially improved productivity in the engineering division. When VISION and IBM pooled our experience, we saw patterns emerge in failed implementations that still hold true over 20 years later. We have observed that these tend to fall into three recurring traps:

1. Top-down business cases built without field insight
Senior management creates business cases reliant on consultant reports, benchmarks, or boardroom assumptions – leaving out the insights of those closest to the work. This disconnect leads to lack of buy-in from operations, who see little relevance in the proposed changes and no path to achieving the promised benefits.

2. Unused custom features and redundant rework during design and build
IT transformation projects frequently burn through budget and time by designing elaborate features that are never used. Misalignment between stakeholders causes repeated rework, decision delays, and bloated systems.

3. Underinvestment in the human side
When working practices don’t evolve to make the most of the new systems, real value fails to materialise. Teams often receive training, but not the new routines or responsibilities needed to make the system work. Resistance is common – and entirely rational – when people are asked to change without seeing real benefit.

A Different Approach: The Mobilise-First Methodology

When organisations change core systems, productivity usually dips. People blame the technology, cling to old habits, and resist adoption. That resistance isn’t just predictable, it’s rational. Our “mobilise-first” approach flips the usual sequence. Instead of starting with system design, we start by changing how people work on the ground, then shape the system around those proven practices. We introduce the system’s out-of-the-box capabilities alongside a handful of targeted operational and behavioural changes designed to deliver measurable wins. The focus is on high-impact areas, deploying one or two new practices and refining them directly with frontline teams. Results are often surprising , and they come quickly.
This early engagement creates visible success, builds trust, and generates the momentum for lasting change. Only once these insights emerge do we define the system configuration and any customisation needed. All requirements, from reporting to data structures, are grounded in real-world use, not theoretical assumptions. Mobilisation typically starts in a single geography or function, giving a controlled environment to test, refine, and scale. These early wins overcome organisational scepticism and prove that change is not only possible but already happening. As we progress, the business case is updated and system specifications are shaped by outcomes. Where needed, an interim prototype can support evolving practices before full rollout. Data cleansing happens in step with these changes, embedding long-term processes to keep it clean.

Lessons from the Field

The mobilisation-first approach isn’t theory; it’s proven in the field. We worked with a utility where senior managers tried to centralise planning, scheduling, and dispatch using advanced software platforms. We called it the “Click mindset,” after a popular field service management tool. The idea was to control resources centrally by drip-feeding instructions to field teams several times a day, rather than trusting them to manage their own workload. On the ground, engineering managers pushed back. They argued they could work more efficiently if given a week’s worth of jobs at once and left to manage them locally. Our diagnosis backed them up. When field leaders were trusted to plan and deliver weekly workloads themselves, productivity rose 20% and work order completion doubled, with no complex centralised scheduling required. That’s the essence of mobilisation-first: transformation starts with changing how people work. The software’s role is to support those changes, not to drive them.

From Information Systems to Commitment Systems

Our thinking is influenced by the landmark 1986 work Understanding Computers and Cognition by Fernando Flores and Terry Winograd. Flores and Winograd saw that traditional IT systems are built on outdated models of information processing, which ignore how work actually happens: through people making and managing commitments to one another. They claimed: “Language is not just used to describe things; it is used to bring things into being.” In other words, work gets done not through data flowcharts, but through conversations for action; requests, promises, negotiations, and assessments. When we focus solely on task automation or data collection, we miss the heart of the enterprise: human coordination. This insight led to the development of Commitment-based Management™, a methodology that treats every project as a network of human commitments that must be made, monitored, and fulfilled. By embedding CbM into our Agile delivery model, we not only improve performance but also uncover and resolve breakdowns before they derail projects. Most importantly, this shift helps teams move from being passive recipients of change to active creators of new ways of working. It’s not the system that drives value; it’s the commitments people make to each other, supported by technology that understands their real-world needs.

Impact

Organisations that take a Mobilise-First approach can cut timeto-results in half and lower total implementation costs by at least 15%. Tangible operational improvements are often visible within just 6–9 months. But the real win goes beyond cost and speed. Mobilise-First tackles the cultural and behavioural roadblocks that sink most traditional projects. By shaping the system around proven, onthe-ground practices, teams become co-creators of change rather than reluctant adopters. This not only grounds the business case in real-world results, it dramatically reduces the risk of failure.

Conclusion

Technology may enable transformation, but it’s people, through new ways of working, who make it real. As SAP drives toward a clean-core future, the real prize isn’t the platform itself, but how organisations seize this moment to reset behaviour, coordination, and ownership on the ground. Mobilisation-First anchors transformation in reality, not theory. It begins where value is created, with field teams, planners, and operational leaders, and builds up from there. By putting working practices ahead of system design, and human commitment ahead of configuration, organisations can deliver results that are both rapid and enduring. If you’re ready to break the cycle of expensive rollouts and poor adoption, now is the time to act. Start by mobilising your people with the right tools, and the system will follow.

Ready to break free from costly rollouts and stalled adoption?
If you’d like to explore how our Mobilise-First approach can deliver measurable results in months, reach out to us at ask@vision.com.