Volume 1 | Issue 1
October 2024
The CX trap: why most transformations are built backwards
Self-limiting beliefs
and self-imposed
mental barriers might
be holding you back
HOW MOST AI TRANSFORMATIONS ACTUALLY BEGIN
A leadership team identifies a technology — an AI platform, a machine learning tool, a large language model. They map it against their current processes. They identify where it can be applied. They build an implementation plan. They announce it.
What happens next is also quite common.
Adoption is slower than expected. The customer experience does not feel materially different. The ROI case becomes harder to prove.
Somehwere by about month nine, the word ‘transformation’ is quietly been replaced by ‘programme’.
The cause is almost always the same:
The transformation was designed around the technology — not around the customer.
MY TAKE
Design thinking starts with the person who experiences the outcome, ie the end user or the customer — its not the system that produces that outcome.
In AI transformation, that means the first question is not:
“What can our technology do?”
It is:
“What does our customer need to experience — and what does that require us to change?”
This shift sounds simple. It is not.
Because when you start with the customer, you immediately expose something most organisations are not prepared to confront:
Technology is the easiest part of transformation (and frankly just the means to an end).
What actually determines success is everything around it — leadership behaviour, internal culture, workflows, and capability.
McKinsey & Company has been consistent on this point in its latest AI research: the organisations seeing real value are not those deploying the most AI — but those redesigning workflows and embedding AI into how work actually gets done.
Deloitte echoes this in its 2025 Global Human Capital Trends: organisations are increasingly recognising that value from AI is created at the intersection of technology, work design, and human capability — not from the technology alone.
When you start with the customer experience (CX), you are forced to redesign that intersection.
WHAT THE DATA IS NOW SHOWING — CONSISTENTLY
Research continues to show a widening gap between investment in AI and actual impact.
Forrester Research found that only 6% of organisations improved CX quality in 2025, despite significant investment in technology, while 73% saw no meaningful change.
McKinsey & Company reports that while AI adoption is widespread, only a minority of organisations are capturing enterprise-level financial impact — with success strongly linked to workflow redesign and leadership alignment, not tool deployment.
Deloitte highlights that many organisations are still operating with “workarounds layered on legacy processes”, rather than fundamentally rethinking how work should happen in an AI-enabled environment.
The pattern is clear:
Organisations are adding AI into existing systems — instead of redesigning systems around the experience they want to create.
The result is activity without transformation.
THE QUESTION THAT RESETS THE TRANSFORMATION
Before your leadership team discusses any AI tool, platform, or vendor its best to answer this question together:
In 18 months, if this transformation has worked, what does a customer say about working with us that they cannot say today?
Make the answer specific.
Not a generic: “faster” Not: “more personalised”
But:
“A customer receives a relevant, personalised resolution within two hours — without needing to follow up.”
Then ask the harder question:
What must be true inside our organisation for that experience to be possible?
- What capabilities do we need that we do not have today?
- Which workflows must be redesigned — not optimised?
- Where is leadership currently too far removed from the work?
- And critically — do we have the right leaders to drive this?
Because this is where most transformations stall:
Not at the point of technology selection — but at the point where organisations realise what change actually requires (its not easy, but working with the end point or outcome you want to create for your customer is the only way to ensure meaningful transformation that’s going to make a lasting impact).
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR HOW YOU LEAD TRANSFORMATION
The organisations that will win the next decade of AI transformation will not be the ones that moved first on technology.
They will be the ones that were most precise about the experience they wanted to create — and most deliberate about building the leadership, capability, and operating model to deliver it.
That often requires something most organisations underestimate:
Not just new tools — but new thinking, new leadership, and sometimes new talent.
Start with the customer.
Design backwards from there.
And be honest about whether your organisation is equipped to follow through.
Sources:
- McKinsey & Company — The State of AI in 2025: Agents, Innovation, and Transformation
- Deloitte — 2025 Global Human Capital Trends
- Forrester Research — 2025 Global Customer Experience Index Rankings
Anu D’Souza is the Managing Director of Bricoleur Consulting — insight-led leadership recruitment and transformation. She has spent her career at the intersection of business growth strategy and digital-first talent, working with and within companies including Unilever, Ogilvy and BBDO across multiple markets and cultures. Bricoleur works with senior leadership teams across APAC who are navigating AI and digital transformation — from readiness assessment through to placing the permanent and fractional leaders who make it stick. Anu is also the author ofAligned: Why CEOs Need Company Brand Alignment in the Age of a Questioning Workforce.
Connect with Anu:
insight@bricoleurconsulting.com · Book a 30-minute AI Transformation Starting Point Conversation: calendly.com/bricoleurconsulting/30min