Tech taxes: the real cost of being missold ‘digital transformation’

Technology12 Jun 2025

Sponsored by Symphony Commerce

Big promises, broken systems, and hidden tech taxes of buying ‘digital transformation’ tools that didn’t deliver? Here’s your escape plan

You said yes to the pitch. The demo was slick. The sales deck promised transformation. But six months later, no one’s using it – or worse, your teams are actively working around it. Sound familiar?

You’re not alone. A recent survey revealed that nearly 60 per cent of companies regret at least one software purchase made in the past 12 to 18 months. Over half reported significant financial setbacks due to these decisions, and two in five felt that a poor software choice reduced their competitiveness.

But here’s the kicker: you didn’t make a bad decision. You were missold the dream. Under pressure to modernise and stay ahead, most leaders fall into the same trap: chasing software instead of strategy, features instead of fit.

It’s time we stopped beating ourselves up for making the wrong tech choices and started asking better questions.

How it happens – again and again

The mistake isn’t in choosing the wrong tool. It’s in being told a tool alone will change anything.

Most tech regret follows the same pattern: a team identifies a pain point, finds a promising platform, gets excited by the promise of automation or AI or integration – and pulls the trigger. What doesn’t happen? Deep alignment. Cross-functional planning. A cold, hard look at whether the tool fits the bigger picture.

So, the new system is rolled out. Training is patchy. Internal champions aren’t fully on board. The data doesn’t sync quite right. Reports are harder to pull than expected. Before long, the platform becomes just another login in the stack – or worse, a barrier teams have to work around.

It’s no wonder. Leaders are making decisions under huge pressure. Pressure to innovate. To digitise. To not fall behind competitors. When transformation becomes a breathless race, it’s easy to reach for the fastest-looking solution.

But chasing transformation piecemeal – one app, one dashboard, one feature at a time – often creates more complexity than it actually solves. Disconnected tools lead to duplicated effort. Quick wins become long-term liabilities. And somewhere along the way, the whole organisation starts to feel… tired. Tired of workarounds. Tired of workaround tools for the workarounds. Tired of hearing “we’re transforming” while nothing really changes. And that costs. A lot.

The (not so) hidden costs of poor tech decisions

When technology investments falter, the consequences extend far beyond the initial financial outlay. A 2024 study by WalkMe revealed that companies lost an average of $104 million (around £77 million) to ineffective software adoption, inefficient workflows and failed IT initiatives.

Moreover, a global study found that 58 per cent of business leaders report their companies use inaccurate data for significant decisions, and 65 per cent believe no one in their organisation fully understands the data collected or how to access it.

These issues contribute to a broader problem: 70 per cent of digital transformation projects fail to meet their stated goals, leading to wasted resources and missed opportunities.

As sociologist William Bruce Cameron once said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” In the context of that (now somewhat ancient) buzzterm “digital transformation”, this underscores the importance of looking beyond the glittering prizes to the real jackpot: aligning technology investments with strategic objectives and ensuring that data quality and user adoption are prioritised.

To make this actually happen, organisations should adopt a holistic approach to technology implementation, focusing on user engagement, data integrity and alignment with business goals. That’s what is really meant by “digital transformation”. So how do you get there?

The real questions you need to ask before you buy

When you’re faced with a slick pitch, an exciting demo or a new “must-have” feature, there’s one question that should cut through the noise: Does this system actually fit our business?

That doesn’t mean:

Does it integrate? Most tools claim they do.
Does it look intuitive? That’s what demos are built for.
Does it solve the immediate pain point? Quick wins often lead to long-term complexity.

The deeper (and often more painful) follow-up to consider is: will this support the way we price, fulfil, serve, and grow? Or will we need to bend our business to suit the tool?

Because that’s where things break. Most technology isn’t built for your unique workflows. It’s designed for generic use cases – the “average” business, the “standard” team. The more complex or cross-functional your business is, the faster those assumptions fall apart.

The result? Teams build workarounds. Managers lose visibility. Data becomes siloed and incomplete. Innovation slows as every tweak becomes a risk.

So before you buy, here’s what you need to ask:

Will this adapt to our processes - or demand we adapt to it?
Will our teams use it naturally - or tolerate it reluctantly?
Can it scale with our ambitions - or will it lock us in?

The best platforms aren’t the flashiest. They’re the ones that quietly enable speed, alignment and growth – because they work with you, not against you. And that’s born from communication.

Genuine transformation partners do not offer one-size-fits all “solutions”. They get to know your goals and blockers first. The resulting platform should be invisible and intelligent – stitched into every function, enabling your business to grow without dictating how it operates.

If the provider you’re looking at offers something “bespoke” but doesn’t tangibly show you how they’ll supercharge both your front-end and back-end ambitions coherently, walk away. Fast.

Transformation isn’t about bolting on. It’s about building outwards from a foundation that fits.

The good news? There is a path through the transformation junkyard. And it starts by flipping the script: stop treating tech as a patch and start designing platforms as ecosystems.

Stop chasing features and start solving problems

Real transformation doesn’t begin with the next big feature. It begins with a smarter foundation.

Before you greenlight another piece of technology, take a step back and consider something that sounds obvious but rarely gets enough attention: What’s the real problem we’re trying to solve?

Too often, businesses invest in new tools not because they’re the right fit but because they’re the most visible, the most hyped or the easiest to say yes to. The demo dazzles. The feature list checks out. A competitor just signed up.

But here’s the truth: real transformation isn’t driven by features. It’s driven by clarity.

And clarity is hard. It means resisting the urge to act fast. It means challenging the biases that cloud big decisions – fear of missing out, loss aversion, the sunk cost of legacy tech. It means asking uncomfortable questions such as:

Are we solving the root problem, or just soothing the symptoms?
Will this new system simplify, or just add another layer of admin?
Does it fit how we actually work, or how the vendor thinks we should?

According to McKinsey, businesses with fragmented tech stacks are nearly three times more likely to miss their digital transformation goals. And Gartner reports that around half of new tech investments fail to deliver expected value, largely due to poor integration and misalignment with business needs.

These aren’t anomalies, they’re the all-too-common crushing results of a business mindset problem. One where buying tech is seen as progress, and slowing down to ask why feels like falling behind.

At Symphony Commerce, we help businesses shift that mindset. We start with strategy, not software. We look at how you price, sell, fulfil and grow and we build around your business logic, not force you to rewrite it.

After all, the most powerful shift a business can make isn’t technical, it’s mental.

It’s the decision to stop reacting, start rebuilding and finally escape the tools that have been holding you back. Freedom from the tech tax starts with asking better questions.

Avoid the tech tax: get your free Digital Commerce Decision Maker’s Kit.

Your no-nonsense pack to achieving true e-commerce freedom – tried and tested tools to help you escape tech sprawl, spot the real blockers and forge a better path with confidence

Download your free digital commerce decision maker’s kit here