How does a company with a start-up mentality scale up at speed?

Learn how an ecosystem approach turned a tech company’s multi-milliondollar consolidation challenge into a success story of human-centred leadership.

The better the question

How do you build trust and inspire an ecosystem of talent beyond your direct control?

The challenge of building an ecosystem of 1,000-plus technology professionals began by finding new ways of working.

After growing a global footprint by purchasing smaller competitors this company made a strategic decision to create a platform that consolidated a patchwork of systems into one unified platform to enhance internal efficiencies, accelerate product innovation, and unearth new competitive advantage.

A consolidation program was scoped, a multi-million dollar budget set and the market briefed in the traditional way. Partners were chosen, panels formed, service agreements signed… And then the in-house software engineering team decided they wanted to walk a different path. Rather than handing over the problem for consultants to fix, the client wanted to maintain control of the entire process.

This challenged EY teams to find new ways of working.

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Leaders that put humans at the center to navigate turning points are 12 times more likely to significantly improve transformation performance. Learn More.
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How would we scale up a workforce to 1,000-plus people, with multiple consultancies, software vendors, alliance partners, gig workers and freelancers – some of them competitors – working together in one ecosystem?

Together, EY teams rewrote contracts and collaborated with the leadership team to establish new governance structures, provide the change management stream, and source talent – all with a “humans at centre” philosophy at its heart. The client has now successfully landed this change and provided a foundation to accelerate innovation and growth. Below are key lessons.

The better the answer

Prioritising people-focussed solutions can double the likelihood of transformation success.

Despite decades of experience and enormous investments of money, time and resources, the failure rate of technology transformation programs remains stubbornly high.

In 2019, EY teams and the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School struck up a collaboration to find out why. In 2021, the two organisations published the first research report, which revealed a shocking truth: two-thirds of transformation programs fail. The research found 67% of senior leaders had experienced at least one underperforming transformation in the previous five years.

In 2024, the next instalment of the research was released. This found 96% of transformation programs experience challenges that generate a “turning point” determining their success or failure.

Leaders who can skillfully navigate these turning points by prioritising people-focused solutions can double the likelihood that a transformation will overperform against its key performance indicators (1.9x) and its overall speed (2.1x).

New thinking is needed to navigate these turning points, and the research data reveals that humans are at the centre of this thinking.

The client needed a flexible and adaptive collaborator to guide the technical delivery, bring together an ecosystem of talent, and manage the change and business transformation process. A flexible mindset and commitment to collaboration were keys to success.”

Kurt Solarte

Oceania Technology Consulting Leader

The better the world works

The better the way the world works

Setting up the six conditions for success.

The research undertaken by EY teams and the Saïd Business School has revealed the six conditions that will increase the likelihood of a successful transformation by a factor of x2.6.

These six conditions weren’t all in place when the technology transformation project began. As Asmita Verma Rajendren, EY Humans@Center Lead Partner notes, “The cost to the client was clear: not just the cost of delivery and shareholder trust, but also a risk of high burnout and turnover rate among the team, with knowledge walking out the door.”

By launch, all six conditions for a successful transformation were in place.

Vision sets the tone for every transformation. For the vision to inspire people, leaders need to clearly communicate the why as well as the what. According to the research, 71% of workers agree that understanding the reasons for the change is a critical component of its ultimate success.

“Everyone in the client’s organisation understood why the transformation was imperative,” Asmita says. The urgency alone was compelling – competitors were moving in and shareholder value was eroding. “The foundations for success were laid with a fundamental belief in the project. Trust and a commitment to collaboration cascaded down from that.”

As the transformation was multi-year, our client’s leadership played a key role in sharing wins and reinforcing the vision through their own interactions and divisional townhalls. This helped the entire company understand the importance of this mission.
The Humans@Centre research found leaders rank leadership as the number one driver when a transformation program is successful, but only number 10 when the transformation underperforms. Workers rank leadership number one regardless of a program’s success or failure.

“The client had the right leaders at the helm – and so did EY teams. Leaders had the courage to challenge the status quo, the curiosity to consider the project from multiple perspectives, and the care to listen to a diversity of perspectives,” Asmita notes.
“Technology transformation projects are not linear. They take twists and turns, and the destination at the outset is rarely the final endpoint. Success is dependent on collaborators that are flexible and prepared to take each step of the journey together,” says EY Oceania Technology Consulting Leader, Kurt Solarte.

“With the client maintaining control, EY teams needed to figure out new ways to manage the massive integrated teams of in-house software engineers and external specialist contractors. How would we plan out roles and responsibilities? How would we hold people accountable? How would we inspire a sense of team?” The solution was to choose the senior leaders with the right mix of technical knowledge and soft skills.
Introducing any new technology has an emotional edge. Some people fear the impact it will have on their jobs, and the Humans@Centre research has found workers in underperforming transformations are 25% more likely to agree that transformation leads to worry about job security.

The research also found leaders are often surprised to learn that employees felt unheard, unsupported and stressed during and after a transformation.

Rather than “forcing” change on workers, EY teams worked with the client to appoint change management professionals in each market who literally spoke the language on the ground.
“This project was provided against a backdrop of acute technology skills shortages,” says Kurt. “In small markets, it is unlikely that any firm will have all the skills it needs for projects of this size and scale. We were all fighting over the same people, so we had to work together – software vendors, alliance partners, freelancers and even competitors – to create an ecosystem.”

Ecosystems that bring together people across geographies, demographics and working styles require skilled human leadership.

“The success of this program was dependent on specialists.” By paying close attention to individual KPIs and team performance, skills gaps were identified, and specialists could be sourced to fill them. Sometimes this meant moving teams around, but it also gave people a greater opportunity to play to their strengths.
“Purposeful technology” has a powerful and positive emotional impact on transformation programs. The key lies in developing technology that not only serves its intended purpose but also captivates and inspires individuals to engage with it in innovative ways.

As Asmita observes: “Small things, done really well, become a key to the success of a transformation.” Some of the changes – like ensuring every team had access to the same internal communication channels – did more to reinforce the philosophy that ‘every voice matters’ than any formal policy could.

To support the client on the journey, a combination of intellectual and interpersonal skills were required. “The balance between rational and emotional was important on the client’s growth journey. In reality, this meant marrying good program delivery practices with empathy and care. Thinking about the delivery team on the ground as people and not resources.”

Radical interdependency was initially missing until we pointed out the mindset shift required for the company to transition to its next stage of growth.

Asmita Verma Rajendren

Partner, People Consulting, EY Australia

As Asmita observes: “Small things, done really well, become a key to the success of a transformation.” Some of the changes – like ensuring every team had access to the same internal communication channels – did more to reinforce the philosophy that ‘every voice matters’ than any formal policy could.

Placing humans at the centre of this ambitious transformation paid off. The client’s team has developed a transformation muscle that sets them up to lead themselves through future growth initiatives. Siloes were dismantled. Software upgrades are no longer undertaken three times, and servers don’t need to be maintained in three separate markets. Products are only built once before being rolled out to a potential market of more than 250 million customers. As the client steadily grows market share, it is poised to prosper well into the future.

This success story is also a powerful case study of human-centred leadership for others contemplating the way forward. As the Humans@Centre research shows, prioritising people improves the performance of a transformation by up to 12 times. The true secret to scaling up lies in the power of prioritising people.

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