New research from Forrester Consulting, commissioned by SAP, has revealed that 74% of organizations plan to increase investment in transformation. But when it comes to the maturity required to execute transformation effectively, only 6% qualify as leaders.

Competitive pressures, systemic risks, technological disruption, and workforce shifts are reshaping the modern business landscape constantly, meaning most organizations already run multiple transformations simultaneously. In fact, Forrester’s research reveals that 72% of organizations are pursuing four or more transformation initiatives annually.

However, despite its continuous nature, many still treat business transformations as a series of disconnected projects, limited to specific functions or technology upgrades—a fragmented approach that slows execution, reduces impact, and prevents organizations from realizing the full value of their investments.

That’s why SAP partnered with Forrester Consulting to deliver a comprehensive survey of enterprise-level global organizations, assessing levels of business transformation management maturity.

The results clearly show that developing a repeatable, scalable transformation capability is how organizations best prepare themselves to address the challenges mentioned above and transform successfully again and again. Building and growing such a capability means bringing together strategy, processes, technology, and culture into a cohesive and strategic framework that accelerates execution, improves measurement, and enables ongoing innovation.

The 6% club

Conducted online with over 1,000 cross-industry senior decision-makers at organizations in APAC, EMEA, Latin America, and North America, the “From Ambition To Execution: Building Repeatable Business Transformation” survey was able to segment respondents into four maturity tiers—beginner, intermediate, advanced, and leader—based on their strengths across five dimensions: strategy and leadership, applications and technology, process, data, and people and culture.

Only 6% of the surveyed firms qualified as transformation leaders, with most organizations still facing significant gaps in execution, governance, and cultural alignment. The findings also showed:

• Transformation is now ‘business as usual.’ Over half of organizations (52%) plan to increase transformation investments by 11% to 20% in the next 12 months; another 22% expect to boost spending by more than 20%. Only 1% plan to reduce investment.
• Barriers to success are common. Fifty-six percent of respondents struggle with poor data, 55% encounter persistent organizational silos, and 52% highlight employee fatigue from continuous change
• Governance is lacking. Only 24% of organizations have a cross-functional transformation governance board, and just 25% embed transformation goals into KPIs. 

Fortunately, even organizations that haven’t yet reached the leader stage are conscious of the benefits of building a transformation capability, with respondents highlighting the following expected outcomes:

• Increased ability to pivot in response to market shifts or disruptions (68%)
• Faster upskilling and reskilling of the workforce (66%)
• Faster execution of strategic initiatives (65%)
• Increased consistency and reliability in process execution (65%)
• Increased leadership alignment and accountability (64%)

Unlocking the benefits

Overall, survey respondents were committed to transformation at scale, but fragmented execution and the lack of an overall strategy have hampered their efforts. This missing piece of the puzzle is where business transformation management solutions from SAP can be of most use.

“Transformation challenges will always exist, particularly in aligning localized execution with an enterprise-wide approach,” Dee Houchen, head of Marketing for SAP Signavio and SAP LeanIX, says. “Our research shows that true transformation leaders embed change into their organization’s DNA. That means prioritizing early employee involvement, building dedicated change functions, and putting a high premium on digital adoption management.”

“SAP Signavio,  SAP LeanIX, and WalkMe solutions offer clarity and transparency in business transformation, helping organizations turn transformation from isolated plans into comprehensive action across the entire organization,” Houchen adds. “This report is an invaluable resource for anyone wondering how they can build repeatable transformation capability and become transformation leaders in their own right.”

Lucas de Boer is global marketing program lead for SAP Signavio.