In one sentence: digitalisation is organisational change with IT as its tool. It is not an IT project with the business as its beneficiary.
The difference may seem semantic at first. In fact, it decides whether the project succeeds or fails.
How IT sees it - and why that is misleading
When a digitalisation project is handed to the IT department - the most common case - IT naturally thinks within a technology frame. It chooses the technology, designs the architecture, estimates development capacity and writes the specification.
All of this is necessary. But it isn't sufficient.
The technology frame doesn't include questions like these: Who will own the change on the business side? How will day-to-day work change for the people affected? Which controls will disappear, and what needs to replace them? Who will receive the data generated in the new system, and what will they use it for?
These aren't IT questions. They are organisational and business questions. If they aren't answered at the start of the project, IT will deliver the best technical solution to a business need that isn't fully understood.
Three roles that should always be there - and usually aren't
The business process owner
Not the head of department, but the person who understands the day-to-day process in depth, knows where the exceptions are, and is responsible for ensuring the digitalised process delivers results at least as good as the manual one. In financial services this is critical: in an insurance claims process, digitalisation without knowledge of compliance and exception handling creates half the value it could.
The business analyst who translates between the two
IT doesn't fully understand the business. The business doesn't fully understand IT. That isn't a problem - it is reality. But if nobody translates between them, misunderstandings surface during development rather than design. A misunderstanding discovered in development costs ten times more than one discovered in design.
The person responsible for change management
The new system can be delivered perfectly - and the organisation can still go back to the old way of working. People naturally reach for what they know, especially if the new solution is imperfect in its first weeks - and every new system is. The change manager's job is to make sure the organisation accepts the new process as the norm before go-live.
So why does the task still end up with IT?
For three reasons - all understandable, none of them good.
IT has the technical tools. True. But technical tools are not the same as project ownership. A mechanic has tools too - but doesn't decide the destination.
"The business doesn't have capacity." This usually means the business has no dedicated time to invest in the project. That is a question of organisational priorities - and if the business can't make time for its own digitalisation project, that says something about how important the project is.
"IT will build it, we'll just sign it off." This is the most dangerous - because if the business takes part as a passive recipient, it will only become clear at go-live that the system doesn't do what the business actually wanted. At that point IT usually gets the blame - unfairly.
A pattern I have seen many times
The project starts. IT leads it; the business attends weekly meetings and approves the milestones. Development progresses. At go-live, business users receive the new system.
In the first week everyone is enthusiastic. In the second week the first problems appear - small things the specification didn't cover because nobody thought of them. By the third week, staff are back to their Excel files "until the system stabilises". Six months later the system is running - and so is Excel. In parallel.
That isn't IT's fault. It is the result of the project having no organisational owner on the business side.
What would the right operating model be?
The business side owns the digitalisation project - the CIO, the head of operations or the process owner. IT is the partner that delivers what the business defines and proposes technology solutions.
That doesn't mean IT is passive. On the contrary: IT actively shapes the solution, makes proposals, and warns the business when something isn't feasible or when a simpler solution could achieve the same goal. But the business sets the goals - and the business is accountable for the change.
At the financial services companies where I have worked - including as CIO - the most successful projects were always the ones where a business leader took ownership. Where IT was simply told to "get it done", the results matched the industry average: 70% of projects ending in partial success or failure.
What this means at FrontX
At FrontX, the business analyst is neither optional nor an afterthought - they are the first person on the project. Their job is to identify the business process owner, help articulate the business need and translate it for IT.
This doesn't slow the project down. It prevents having to go back to basics in the middle of development.
We built our business analysis services with exactly this in mind.
If you are planning a digitalisation project and want to stay out of that 70%, we are happy to talk: frontx.hu/en/company/contact
Frequently asked questions
Why isn't digitalisation an IT project? Because technology is only the tool - the goal is to change organisational and business processes. If IT runs a digitalisation project without business ownership, even the best technical solution implements a business need that isn't fully understood. Success isn't decided by whether the system went live, but by whether the organisation actually changed.
Who should own a digitalisation project? The business side - the CIO, the head of operations or the process owner. IT is the partner and the implementer, not the owner. If the business takes part as a passive recipient, it will only become clear at go-live that the system doesn't do what the business actually wanted.
What role does change management play in digitalisation? Change management makes sure the organisation accepts the new digital process as the norm before go-live. Without it, people return to the old way of working at the first problems. This is one of the most common reasons technically successful projects fail to deliver the expected business results.
When can a digitalisation project be called successful? When the organisation has genuinely changed - not just the technology. Specifically: the measured indicators of the process have improved, the organisation uses the new process instead of the old one, and the change is sustainable without constant firefighting.
László Behán is Managing Director and Co-Founder of FrontX Kft. He was previously CIO of Signal Biztosító, Head of Development and Data Warehousing at Groupama Biztosító, and Operations Director and a member of the Board at LeasePlan Hungaria. He has 25 years of IT and business leadership experience in financial services.
