Technology Does Not Solve Unclear Goals

Growth, upgrades, digitalisation, AI – these are everyday words in today’s business world. All of this is valid, and all of it is genuinely necessary at some point, but without careful consideration of why and how to introduce or change something, rushing ahead is certainly not advisable. This is the fundamental question we must ask ourselves honestly before embarking on any major changes in the company.

In this issue, we interviewed the Head of Digitalisation at the Astri Group, which manages shopping centres in Estonia. Estonia is considered one of the most digitally literate countries in Europe, primarily because it is a global pioneer in e-government, where almost 100% of public services are available online. It was the closing thoughts from that interview that inspired me to write this article:

I completely agree. In most cases, when people hear the word “processes” they first think of a boring pile of paper prepared solely so that the company can keep the appropriate certificate in a drawer. But if processes are written down in a “human” way – the way work actually happens – they suddenly become an indispensable compass. They help align the rules of the game and are an invaluable aid when a new colleague joins the team and simply cannot remember every detail from their very first working day.

In more than twenty years of working on various technology projects, I have seen a great many excellent solutions, as well as quite a few that never truly came to life. And the difference was often not the quality of the technology. Far more important was whether, before starting, the company knew what it wanted to change, who would lead the change, and what success would look like in six months or a year.

When Technology Looks for Its Purpose (and Not the Other Way Around)

If we do not truly understand what we are changing in the business and what we want to achieve, it is much better not to embark on the change at all. Otherwise, we create solutions that ultimately fail to take hold and deliver no added value.

We see this far too often in everyday practice when we receive an enquiry: “Please send us an offer for setting up a loyalty programme where points can be collected and members can be communicated with.”

That sounds almost like going into a shop and ordering “one sandwich, please” . Without saying what the ingredients should be? How big should it be? Should it be based on wholegrain bread and protein-rich chicken salami aimed at active people, or are we looking for something entirely different?

Only once you have precisely defined the foundation can you add that specific touch that makes the real difference. If there is no clear strategy behind it and you have not done your homework, even the most expensive tool simply will not work.

Excuses That Hold Back Development

When we start digging deeper into these details with potential partners, many quickly become intimidated by the entire process and the key question: who will actually take care of it? The project is immediately pushed aside or put on hold. The excuses are always very predictable: “Now is not the right time, we do not have the right person, there is no time, we do not believe in the real impact, and so on.”

Over the years, I have realised something else: technology is usually the easier part of a project. It is much harder to change habits, align different departments, and appoint the person who will actually be responsible for the project. We can set up a server, an application, or an integration. It is considerably harder to make the new solution part of everyday work.

These are entirely legitimate concerns, but too often they leave us simply submerged in day-to-day operations while strategic decisions are continuously pushed to the sidelines. With this mindset, real change in a company cannot happen, and sooner or later the company begins to fall seriously behind the competition.

Why Does Technology Alone Not Create Progress?

In today’s world of constantly chasing trends and artificial intelligence, we too often believe that applications will solve our challenges by themselves. We thoughtlessly add chatbots to websites and introduce systems without even knowing what they are truly meant for. This is where we need to put on the brakes.

The answer to why technology does not help if we do not know exactly what we are doing is based on three simple truths:

Technology and AI are not magic wands, but merely tools. Artificial intelligence can save us countless hours and provide the right data at the right time, but it has no direction of its own. It cannot create value if we have not first understood and organised our own processes.

Efficiency is measurable, but trust is emotional. When a customer or colleague encounters a problem, they are not looking for a cold algorithm. Algorithms have no empathy, cannot recognise genuine human distress, and do not know how to offer support.

A personal adviser remains a source of exceptional added value. In a world racing relentlessly towards automation, genuine human contact will be the key dividing line between average and truly successful companies.

True digitalisation should free our hands. It should take over routine work, repetitive tasks, and data processing so that we can devote our time to where humans still create the greatest value – relationships, understanding, and sound decisions.

If I had to distil one lesson from all these years, I would say: the hardest part of digitalisation is almost never the technology. The hardest part is changing the way people work.

That is why the question today is not whether we have an AI agent, a new application, or the latest digital tool. The real question is: what do we want to achieve with it, and what problem are we actually solving with it?

If we do not have a clear answer to that, we probably do not need the technology yet. If we do, it can become an exceptionally powerful tool for progress.

Technology does not determine the direction. We must first know the direction ourselves.