James Hunter, tech-focused CFO at AccountsIQ with extensive experience setting up finance functions and implementing accounting software.
Over the past decade, I’ve seen countless finance transformation projects fall short of expectations, usually because of reactive technology decisions. In many cases, organizations assume that implementing new technology as quickly as possible, and as a quick fix, will automatically deliver better outcomes. My experience suggests otherwise. Finance leaders need to review all variables before jumping straight into a project.
In 2026, finance transformation has more access to powerful technologies than ever before. AI, cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) and automation platforms promise better performance for finance teams. So why, despite investing millions in transformation program, are many failing to deliver the lasting value finance leaders seek?
Gartner predicts that by 2027, “more than 70% of recently implemented ERP initiatives will fail to fully meet their original business case goals,” with up to 25% failing catastrophically.
A prime example from the past year is Asda’s troubled IT and ERP transformation (paywall), which was introduced to separate it from Walmart’s systems. The project resulted in operational meltdown, from product shortages to payroll issues online ordering problems and home delivery disruptions. This stemmed from poor integration, a lack of testing, planning gaps and a failure to understand the complexity of changing business processes while continuing operations.
According to a recent “Human-Centred Finance Transformation Report” from AICPA & CIMA, 81% of organizations are undergoing or planning finance transformation. In 2026, organizations seeking finance transformation no longer have a technology problem, but they do have an ongoing execution problem.
It’s clear to me that technology is rarely at the center of transformation failure; instead, it exposes existing faults. Many finance leaders blame ERPs and implementation partners for failures, assuming that replacing existing software will erase ongoing operations issues.
The issue is rarely the technology itself. Instead, organizations should ask why finance teams are unable to adopt and embed new systems effectively, and what organizational barriers are preventing the technology from delivering its intended value.
Weak Change Management
Through the years, I’ve seen weak change management contribute to failing finance transformation projects on more than one occasion. Finance leaders need to be more disciplined and have a clear plan to ensure that their teams adapt to change.
When new technologies and platforms are introduced, there is always a natural resistance to change among teams. This often comes down to three core issues. Leaders have not explained to their teams why the change is happening, nor put sufficient training in place. On top of this, there is often a lack of stakeholder buy-in.
According to Gartner, those who continuously adapt their change plan based on employee feedback are four times more likely to see success.
Change management is too often framed as a communications function, when in reality it is the mechanism through which organizations embed new processes, behaviors and ways of working.
Poor Process Mapping And Unclear Ownership After Go-Live
Too many finance leaders are trying to automate broken processes, and this simply does not work. Any leader digitizing a broken process is just creating a broken process that runs faster. Nothing is resolved; you are just doing more damage to your organization.
This lift-and-shift mentality is common, and many leaders lack an understanding of end-to-end finance workflows, replicating existing business inefficiencies in the newly implemented technology.
However, if I were to list the main reason projects fail, it would be that in a lot of cases project ownership disappears once a project has gone live. This lack of responsibility is often the project’s downfall, and nobody owns continuous improvement. Often when a new platform goes live, governance is left behind, key performance indicators (KPIs) are ignored and users return to old habits.
Go-live is when transformation should start; it is not a finish line. Yet so many teams get it wrong.
What Transformation Success Actually Looks Like
When advising finance leaders on how to run a finance transformation project, I advise them to focus on the following four strategies:
• Process ownership needs to be watertight. Throughout a project, all critical processes must have an accountable owner to ensure actions can be monitored and traced. This avoids confusion over accountability.
• Improvement must always be a focus. Leaders need to ensure that transformation is continuous and that finance transformation is not just seen as a project to be completed.
• User adoption needs to be measured before system deployment. The implementation of a new technology system can only be a success when teams are using new processes as required. Overall, the extent to which a team is using a new system needs to be measured the same way as the success of the technology implemented.
• Go-live should be seen as a milestone, not a destination. For a successful finance transformation project, finance leaders should not be striving to reach go-live. In my experience, the most successful projects are those that deliver lasting value, including measurable improvement in efficiency, insight and performance.
Final Thoughts
I believe that finance leaders will find the most success with finance transformation if they stop treating it as a mere IT project and treat it as organizational change. New technologies and systems enable transformation because that is what they were designed for, but the people, processes and governance will determine whether that transformation will indeed last.
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