Data consolidated in April 2026 by TI Inside and corroborated by McKinsey indicate that 70% of digital transformation initiatives in companies fail.For Virgilio Marques dos Santos, PhD in Engineering from Unicamp and founding partner of FM2S Education and Consulting, the problem is not necessarily in the technology adopted, but in the way organizations lead the change.

According to the expert, there are three recurring illusions that lead to the collapse of these projects: the belief that technology replaces process strategy, the misalignment between incentives and operation, and the use of digital transformation as a symbol of modernization, without real structural changes. 

The first illusion is to believe that implementing technology is equivalent to transforming processes. “The most common mistake of leadership is to superimpose modern systems on dysfunctional and highly bureaucratic organizational structures.In this scenario, the company only creates an electronic bureaucracy. Automating an inefficiency does not solve the problem; it only increases the speed with which waste happens”, says Santos. 

Institutional redesign needs to come before technological implementation. Without reviewing flows, responsibilities and operational bottlenecks, digitalization tends only to sophisticated old problems.

McKinsey data shows that companies that actively engage employees during the change process are up to eight times more likely to succeed. Still, many organizations implement new tools without reviewing metrics, goals, or forms of evaluation.

“Leadership imposes a new tool from top to bottom, completely changes the routine of those who operate value generation, but maintains the same charges and indicators of the previous model.The worker perceives operational risk and creates parallel mechanisms to ensure the delivery”, he explains.

According to Santos, it is in this context that the so-called“hidden spreadsheets and informal controls arise, which coexist with official corporate systems.”O the system fails because incentives remain misaligned. Technology changes, but organizational logic remains the same“, he points out.

The third illusion, according to the manager, is deeper and involves the corporate culture itself.“Transforming a company requires facing internal conflicts, dismantling power fiefdoms, admitting vulnerabilities and going through a temporary period of lost productivity.

In this scenario, the acquisition of great technological solutions can work as a kind of symbolic shortcut. “Signing a millionaire contract with a big tech generates the immediate sense of modernization. The purchase of technology becomes a comfortable alibi to avoid the wear and tear of the management of the CHANGE”, he says.

In Santos“ assessment, digital transformation only produces sustainable results when it is treated as a broad organizational change ¡ ̄ and not just as a technological update.”The illusion of transformation is bought so as not to have to pay the price of the real effort”, he states. Without alignment between culture, operation and strategy, digitalization risks only expanding existing inefficiencies under an appearance of modernization

Between click and delivery of e-commerce, a chain of simultaneous and integrated decisions supports each order and there is no room for failure. Applications analyzed by Quality Digital indicate that integration between different fronts of the journey can boost results, with cases such as Osklen, which record growth of up to five times in the conversion of order recovery into conversational channels by connecting data, service and execution throughout the process. Each order runs a continuous sequence of decisions executed simultaneously so that the journey works consistently.

Inspired by the logic of transport networks, Quality Digital's digital operation organizes e-commerce as a structure in which different flows operate in a parallel and interdependent manner. B2C, B2B, D2C, marketplace and omnichannel appear as lines that intersect along the journey and connect to critical points that support execution. Decisions related to catalog, price, availability, payment, order management, logistics and delivery cease to act in isolation and begin to compose an integrated network, in which performance depends on the consistency between data and systems. 

The proposal defended displaces the traditional reading of digital commerce, which for a long time was organized sequentially. By positioning the request as a central element, the model shows that the continuity of the journey depends on the coordination between multiple layers that operate at the same time. “A sale is no longer an isolated event and has become data-driven throughout the operation. When this base is organized, it is possible to measure direct impact on conversion, average ticket and” recurrence, says Julio Britto, CEO of Quality Digital.  

The expansion of channels and integrations has raised the level of operational complexity in companies. Commerce platforms, order management systems, payment methods, logistics solutions and customer relationship tools have started to act simultaneously, requiring continuous synchronization. With the reduction of manual intervention, response time decreases, while inconsistencies tend to propagate with greater speed throughout the operation. 

E-commerce performance is increasingly associated with execution capacity. Demand generation loses relevance when the operational structure does not sustain the journey to delivery.Inaccurate information at checkout, inventory divergences and logistic misalignments affect the consumer experience, increase costs and impact the perception of brand value. 

According to Roberto Ave Faria, director of Quality Digital, the execution of the journey needs to combine operational precision with capacity to adapt to demand.“The concept of delivery promise works as a delivery deadline contract and is decisive for the finalization of the purchase, after all, any deviation directly impacts the conversion and consumer confidence”, he says. The executive also highlights the need for evolution in the way retail works the hyperpersonalization of the experience. “In the concept of home for you, the digital showcase starts to be assembled according to the profile, history and customer interest.It is no use to offer everything to everyone. 

Currently, in the digital commerce scenario, the sustainable growth of e-commerce depends less on the increase in volume and more on the ability to coordinate decisions in an integrated way. With the expansion of digital channels and the increase in the connections necessary to support each order, operational efficiency begins to define the limit between growth with profitability and loss of performance. By making this structure visible, the model presented contributes to a more accurate understanding of the factors that determine the result in digital commerce.

Investment in logistics automation has been growing rapidly in Brazil and worldwide, driven by the need to gain efficiency and, at the same time, by increased operational complexity, pressure to reduce costs and increasing difficulty in hiring and retaining labor.In distribution centers, logistics hubs and intralogistics operations, the need to process more volume, with more speed and fewer errors, has placed technology at the center of operational strategy.

However, although investment in automation advances, many companies still face difficulties to transform technology into real efficiency. Problems such as flow management failures, low standardization of processes, excessive manual steps and lack of integration between systems continue to limit the expected gains.

According to Fortune Business Insights projections, the global logistics robotics market is expected to grow by about 13.9% per year by 2030. Already a Deloitte survey points out that more than 75% of companies already adopt some level of intralogistic automation. Despite this, the adoption of new technologies is not always accompanied by a structural review of the operation.

In practice, the scenario reveals a mismatch between investment and execution. Many organizations direct resources to advanced technologies, such as robots and automated systems, without first solving structural and basic issues of the operation, such as process organization, layout design, flow organization and, especially, data visibility and integration between logistics steps.

This challenge becomes even more critical in the face of labor shortages.With leaner teams and greater difficulty to fill operational positions, automation is no longer just an alternative to gain productivity and becomes a tool to support the continuity of the operation.

“There is a tendency to look at automation as an immediate solution, especially when the company is already pressured by volume, cost or lack of manpower.The challenge, as many think, is not only in the application of technology, but in the ability to implement it consistently so that it is scalable and aligned with the reality of the” operation, says Murilo Namura, Head of Equipment at Pitney Bowes, a global company that provides technology, logistics and services worldwide.

According to the executive, one of the main errors is in the timing of the investment. Many companies only seek more robust solutions when the operation already has relevant bottlenecks, such as delays, rework, low productivity, accumulation of orders or difficulty absorbing demand peaks. In these cases, the implementation can become more complex, costly and sensitive to the operational routine.

“When automation is thought of reactively, it needs to solve problems that could have been avoided with planning. Therefore, before investing in technology, it is essential to map processes, understand bottlenecks, assess the dependence on manual tasks and identify where automation can really generate” impact, adds Namura.

Deloitte says organizations that implement automation reactively after disorganized growth can experience up to 30% higher costs, as well as face increased adaptation time and increased risk of disruption during the transition.

For Pitney Bowes, logistics automation should be seen as part of a structured operational efficiency strategy, not as an emergency response. This includes not only the adoption of equipment and systems, but also the redesign of internal flows, integration between logistics steps, use of data for decision making and preparation of the operation to gain scale.

“The difference is not in isolated technology, but in the ability to transform this investment into real efficiency in everyday life. Companies that can do this in an integrated and continuous way are the ones that need to process more volume, with fewer people and greater control intelligently and with the lowest possible ROI”, concludes the spokesperson.