Every company is racing to modernize. There’s a sense that if you aren’t adopting new technology fast enough, you’re already behind. From AI and automation to digital platforms, the list keeps growing. Leaders make big investments, employees sit through onboarding sessions, and for a few weeks, excitement fills the air. Then the momentum fades.
Dashboards sit idle. Pilots stall. The return on investment never arrives.
We see it all the time. On the factory floor, operators are juggling a dozen tools that don’t talk to each other. Managers chase data that doesn’t reflect what’s really happening. Teams try to keep up with systems meant to help them but instead end up slowing them down. In moments like that, it’s clear that transformation isn’t just about technology—it’s about people.
TRANSFORMATION STARTS WITH CLARITY
Real transformation begins with clarity. A tool must serve a defined purpose, be anchored to measurable outcomes, and be designed around the people who use it. True impact happens when it’s tied to measurable business goals and shaped around the people who actually use it.
Together as the CEO and the customer strategy lead of Squint, a manufacturing AI startup, we spend our days in our customers’ factories, walking the floor with production managers, maintenance crews, and line operators. We see firsthand how new systems can either make work smoother or create new friction.
Over time, we’ve noticed a pattern: Too many teams start with the tool instead of the goal. They adopt technology because it looks impressive, not because they’ve defined what success should look like.
Implementation should always begin with two simple questions:
- What problem are we solving?
- How will we know when we’ve solved it?
At one food and beverage manufacturer we worked with, the operations team made a single smart decision. They tied their rollout to a company-wide goal of reducing downtime. That clarity changed everything. Instead of running scattered pilots across departments, they focused on the process that mattered most: unplanned line stoppages in their packaging area. Within weeks, operators were using the new system to run machines more smoothly, and technicians were diagnosing problems faster. Downtime dropped noticeably.
The transformation didn’t come from the tool itself, but from the focus and from the people. Once the team anchored implementation to a business priority, adoption took care of itself. People didn’t have to be convinced to use it; they saw its value immediately.
On another visit, we met with a maintenance team that was struggling because they spent half their time walking between the floor and a back office just to check paper manuals. The tech couldn’t solve any real problems until what was getting in people’s way was defined. Once they could access that information digitally, troubleshooting time dropped dramatically. More importantly, the team wanted to use the new system because it solved a problem that actually mattered to them.
If people don’t find value in a tool, no amount of training or policy will make it work. But when technology removes friction from their day, adoption becomes natural.
That’s what good implementation does. It removes friction and gives people back the focus they need for the work that matters most.
KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER IS CRITICAL TO IMPLEMENTATION
The last piece of effective implementation is knowledge transfer. Every organization has experts whose know-how keeps things running, but much of that knowledge exists only in their heads. When those people retire or move on, it disappears. Implementation should include ways to capture and share what they know so the organization continues to learn. We’ve seen companies build training systems around their most experienced workers, turning decades of individual experience into company-wide capability.
That’s when technology stops being a project and starts becoming a culture, one that learns, adapts, and grows as its people do.
Across the board, it is clear that people-first, problem-centered implementation is the real differentiator. The organizations that win don’t just buy tools; they implement them strategically, tie them to measurable goals, and design them around their people.
Because great technology doesn’t replace people; it amplifies them. And in the end, technology doesn’t transform companies. People do.
Devin Bhushan is the CEO and founder of Squint and Carolina Lago Pena Maia is the customer strategy lead at Squint
source https://www.fastcompany.com/91459120/tech-transformation-isnt-about-how-many-tools-you-buy
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