Digital transformation

AI use is increasing, but IT leaders have regrets about investments and experimentation, according to an Asana survey published in May 2025. The software provider's research arm surveyed more than 550 technology decision-makers.

More than half of IT leaders surveyed regret implementing AI without training employees. Nearly 30% of respondents said they invested in AI too quickly, up 7% from the 2024 survey. Moreover, 62% said they regret not experimenting enough, although that’s down 10% from 2024.

For IT leaders who invested in AI during 2024, more than one-third are now pulling back or replacing AI-powered tools and services with “better alternatives,” according to the survey.

Most enterprises are still working to hit their stride when it comes to implementing AI successfully as the yearslong deluge of tools and services continues. But blind enthusiasm has waned.

“The 2024 rush to deploy AI has given rise to a sobering reality,” Asana said in the report. “Promise has been buried under a pile of pilots, proof-of-concepts and half-baked strategies.”

CIOs often feel unable to move generative AI projects into production due to several factors, including data dilemmas, infrastructure gaps, talent woes, cost challenges and security concerns.  

As the uphill battle comes into clearer view, enterprise AI project failures have risen. More than 40% of companies admitted to abandoning most of their AI initiatives in 2025, compared with just 17% that said the same in 2024, according to analysis from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Some enterprises have found success by distilling priority projects and narrowing AI pursuits as the pressure to deliver results mounts. 

The majority of organizations with scaled AI projects report productivity improvements, higher-quality work and better decision-making, according to Asana’s survey. Early adopters, like General Mills and Charles Schwab, have also pointed to cost savings as a key benefit.

CFOs and CIOs differ on how aggressively they think their businesses should invest in technology, one of several points of contention between finance and tech chiefs, according to KPMG data released in March 2025. The company surveyed more than 100 CFOs, CIOs and employees for the report.  

Nearly one-third of finance chiefs say technology innovation spending is excessive, compared to just 16% of CIOs. Nearly 1in 3 CIOs say tech budgets are currently insufficient, while just 12% of CFOs say the same. 

CIOs flagged the assessment of tech ROI as the top point of contention between finance and IT, according to the survey. CFOs identified understanding tech tool capabilities as the top issue with their counterparts in IT.

Businesses expect IT and finance departments to work together as operations rely more heavily on technology. Largely, executives are getting there, as more than 9 in 10 CIOs and CFOs describe their relationship as collaborative despite friction.

"The most successful CIOs are the ones that are saying [to CFOs] 'how can I help you make better decisions, or use that information or technology to become more efficient across the organization?" said Sanjay Sehgal, KPMG U.S. Advisory head of markets.

Differing executive viewpoints on tech spend can actually be healthy for organizations, according to Sehgal. The tension can help boards ensure tech spending drives value.

"Transformational success is only realized when CFOs and CIOs join forces, basically steering the technology to meet the business needs," Sehgal said.

Rising adoption of resource-intensive technologies, like cloud and generative AI, has pushed organizations to look closely at their tech spending. The shift to infuse operations with AI led to "unmanageable" cost spikes, according to a Tangoe report published in October 2024.

Most finance chiefs highlight the CFO-CIO relationship as a potential driver of operational efficiency, according to the KPMG report. Strong connections between finance and tech chiefs can also help improve financial performance.

General Mills Chief Digital and Technology Officer Jaime Montemayor highlighted the work of the finance team amid the company's push to deploy AI, speaking during a CIO Dive virtual event in October 2024. 

“The finance team is the one that is helping us keep the score,” Montemayor said.

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By Holafly

Digital transformation is now a business necessity, especially with artificial intelligence being adopted so rapidly. For many organizations, this transformation will focus on cloud, automation, and data analytics, and even though it’s critically important, mobile connectivity is regularly overlooked.

Research has found that 80% of business travelers consider internet access essential for their productivity during business trips, but 65% experience stress due to travel disruptions like roaming and costs. And that’s why incorporating eSIM technology into a digital transformation strategy can make a real difference to the operations of highly mobile, global, and connected workforces.

In this article, we’ll explore why eSIM solutions and mobile access modernization are an untapped opportunity for IT efficiency, cost control, and operational excellence business-wide.

Legacy Mobile Infrastructure: The Hidden Drain on IT Resources

Relying on traditional physical SIM card technology for business connectivity may seem straightforward and logical. But dig beneath the surface, and you’ll quickly find that this approach is increasingly ill-suited for digital-first operations:

Why are SIM cards impractical?

Physical SIM plans are often constrained by limited one-language support, slow manual shipping and management, and can make it difficult to track expenses across global teams.

How do SIM cards introduce security risks?

If employees can’t roam and have to rely on public Wi-Fi while they’re away, sensitive business data is vulnerable to unauthorized access, with the knock-on consequence of compliance issues.

Why is SIM card use difficult to scale?

The more physical SIMs you have, the more time and resources are required to manage them all. If your organization is growing, this complexity will only increase.

How do SIM cards waste money?

Outdated mobile management processes don’t help with IT cost optimization initiatives and soak up valuable time that the IT team could be spending on strategic projects. Additionally, companies overspend by as much as 85% on roaming charges compared to more cost-efficient eSIM alternatives.

Why are SIM cards poor for sustainability?

Physical SIM cards require manual logistics and transportation, which generate a CO2 emissions burden that can clash with sustainability and ESG objectives.

eSIM Technology: The Missing Piece of Your Digital Infrastructure

More and more businesses are realizing that eSIM solutions are the answer to those practical issues. eSIM adoption is expected to triple globally by 2027, and the majority of travel managers report growing demand for digital-first travel solutions. And just as you may have moved away from physical servers towards cloud infrastructure, migrating to cloud-first mobile solutions like eSIMs follows a similar principle, as part of a wider IT infrastructure modernization.

As eSIMs are cloud-first, automation-driven, and data-transparent, they’re easy to provision and manage, however large your organization’s estate of mobile devices might be. And not only can they be used in smartphones for business travelers, they can also be used in IoT sensors and other mobile devices, and support AI applications such as smart manufacturing and asset management.

eSIMs make sense from a business and management perspective, too. Using the Holafly for Business platform as an example, IT teams can instantly assign and manage eSIMs from a centralized platform, get them delivered instantly via email or SMS, ensure global coverage with unlimited data options, and monitor all usage and billing in real time.

Five Ways eSIMs Contribute to Digital Transformation

Rolling out eSIMs across your organization can make a real difference to how you and your workforce operate, especially across these five key areas:

1. Automated operations: eSIMs can be deployed instantly, without any of the delays or set-up issues that can come with manual SIMs when shipping logistics and physical inventory management are required. No app is required, either, making them user-friendly for every employee.
 

2. Consistently lower costs: The expense of roaming can be cut by 85%, while centralized management, transparent pricing, and monthly billing make costs more predictable and easier to manage.
 

3. Enhanced security posture: With global coverage and unlimited data in over 200 destinations, employees no longer need to use public Wi-Fi for business use, helping them keep sensitive data secure while also connecting reliably.
 

4. Real-time visibility: A centralized dashboard means IT teams can stay in control of eSIM usage, billing, and expenses, along with comprehensive reporting capabilities that help with compliance.
 

5. Sustainable communications: No more plastic waste from physical SIM cards, or emissions impact from shipping logistics. A fully digital setup is kinder to the environment and supports corporate sustainability and CSR efforts.

Next Steps: Integrating eSIMs into Your Transformation Roadmap

What solutions like eSIMs demonstrate is that digital transformation can, and should, be about so much more than adopting new technology. Adopting eSIMS company-wide can empower employees to be more productive, and eliminate the inefficiencies that so often hold businesses back.

Embracing eSIM adoption and integrating mobile connectivity into a digital transformation strategy can truly set up organizations like yours for the long term. eSIMs enable AI implementation and global team management across hybrid and remote workforces, so that every employee can make the most of technology, wherever and whenever they’re working.

The Holafly for Business service backs this up by making it as easy as possible for you to roll out eSIMs across your organization. Instant delivery, transparent pricing, multi-lingual support, and centralized dashboard management come together to make mobile connectivity simpler, safer, more cost-effective, and more sustainable - now and in the future.

Want to find out how eSIM technology can fit in with your digital transformation strategy? Get in touch with Holafly for Business today to discuss your specifics.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Legacy technology systems and applications can cause more than a few problems for businesses. 

Tech debt can hinder cost control, sink team productivity and derail emerging tech ambitions. Legacy tech upgrades come with a hefty price tag, too. Nearly two-thirds of businesses invest more than $2 million in maintenance and upgrades, according to SnapLogic data.

Big projects also exert added pressure on those in charge. 

“I was having a lot of heartburn over this project and finding the right partner,” said Stacie Sloan, COO at Johns Hopkins Federal Credit Union, speaking during a panel discussion in May 2025 at a Creatio conference in Orlando, Florida, referring to an enterprise tech upgrade. 

When it's time for a major systems refresh, CIOs and other technology leaders can help ease modernization hurdles, mitigate stakeholder concerns and build momentum to fuel projects down the road.

Here are three ways technology leaders can ensure project success:

1. Bring in stakeholders.

Technology leaders and teams need a clear understanding of modernization goals. Connecting with stakeholders and end users can ease hurdles and ensure better communication.

The City of Boston tried three times without success to modernize a 15-year-old 311 system, which served as a one-stop shop for residents to request information.  

“That includes a CRM for the residents to reach out, which integrates with our mobile app and the CRM integrates with our systems that field teams use,” said Jay Greenspan, City of Boston’s senior director, products and services, basic city services. “It’s a heterogeneous sort of environment with some pretty particular software in the mix.”

Previous attempts to modernize the on-premises system had failed due to poor partners, an inability to iterate or test and delayed timelines. The system was no longer being serviced by its vendor, and it would fail on occasion. 

“There was no shortage of will to replace,” Greenspan told CIO Dive. “It was something everybody had known needed to be done and, in an ideal world, would have been done some years back.” 

As part of Boston’s request for proposals for the new system, stakeholders were kept in the loop and often tapped for their perspective. 

“Keeping your stakeholders really close when you’re doing these kinds of efforts, and there’s complex change management involved, is important,” Greenspan said. “The soft-skills aspects of it can potentially be undervalued.” 

Even with complex technical challenges at the heart of the project, bringing in nontechnical perspectives can make or break a project.

“There’s nothing to hold a project back like somebody just not willing to use what you’ve created,” Greenspan said. “We had stakeholders in our selection of the CRM platform and in the RFP process.”

Greenspan didn’t need to rally support for the project, but sometimes technology leaders will need to become storytellers and paint a picture for stakeholders or board members to get everyone on the same page. 

Purplebricks CTO Dan Rafferty said even when systems need to be updated, executives are often trepidatious and “don’t want to rock the boat.” 

The British online real estate company was on the hunt for a new CRM with significant self-service functionality that could bring improved efficiency and reduce average response times for property viewing. 

“Being able to illustrate benefits in such a way that hard-nosed investors, who have heard all these IT projects before, actually give it credence is difficult to do,” Rafferty said. “In our particular case, it helped that we had a big Salesforce bill coming in.”

Technology leaders who can lay out the cons of sticking with the status quo — whether that’s mounting costs or lackluster capabilities — and the benefits of modernizing will have better success. 

2. Align modernization goals.

When a legacy system isn’t working, leaders may feel pulled to go with the 2.0 version even when that’s not the best route. CIOs should look at system upgrades as more than just checking a box, with a focus on project outcomes. 

The City of Boston, for example, needed to rework its request for proposals. 

“For the attempt to move off of the legacy system that occurred around eight years ago, they had put together an RFP with a couple hundred capabilities,” Greenspan said. “At the end of the day, you’re not really learning what you need to when you go about it like that.”

Greenspan said it was more helpful to understand how an implementation partner might approach the work, its product roadmap and potential flexibility. 

“One thing that was important is that we can own the application,” Greenspan said. “We would be reliant on an implementation vendor, but we don’t want to give them a call every time we want to change the system.” 

Sometimes, compliance plays a role in pushing modernization forward, but it shouldn’t be the only guide. 

Citigroup needed to address decades of underinvestment in technology infrastructure after regulators levied more than $130 million in fines in 2024. 

“This is a massive body of work that goes well beyond the consent order … this is not old Citi putting in Band-Aids — this is Citi tackling the root issues head on,” CEO Jane Fraser said during the bank’s Q2 2024 earnings call in July 2024.

As Citi has doubled down on its broader goal of simplifying processes and platforms, the company has retired 1,250-plus applications since 2022, executives said in October 2024.

3. Keep the momentum.

Once organizations strengthen their technology foundation via legacy tech upgrades, the sky is the limit. 

Many enterprises are currently focused on integrating generative and agentic AI capabilities, which require a solid data foundation. Enterprises across industries, from grocers like Albertsons to auto retailers like CarMax, have begun to pave the way for their emerging tech by focusing on the infrastructure that enables it. 

USAA embarked on a three-year push to clean up its massive data estate a few years ago, aiming for a unified data environment. Once the company was able to shift its posture from defense to offense, it also had its sights on AI-based solutions and more advanced analytics capabilities. 

Rafferty kept a forward-looking lens on Purplebricks’ upgrade even in the initial stages of selecting a vendor and gaining leadership buy-in. 

“I, as a technologist, know that some companies call AI what isn’t really AI,” Rafferty added, pointing to his requirement of demos prior to selecting a vendor. 

Rafferty made sure to highlight the momentum that could be gained from a new AI-equipped CRM system, while the company would’ve needed much more resources to explore AI with its legacy system. 

“We’ve inherited a lot of legacy systems … and we wanted to be on the right horse going forward,” Rafferty said.

Mondelēz International is rewriting its technology playbook by way of a $1.2 billion multiyear transformation that seeks to help the snack maker grow its market share and boost revenue.

Getting partners, technology teams, the board of directors, regional CEOs, and members of the C-suite in alignment and ready to execute called for careful orchestration.

The snack maker spent 18 months gearing up for the sizable undertaking, which includes data center exits, workload migrations, generative AI exploration and an ERP upgrade. The preparation efforts resulted in vendor partnerships, shared timelines and strengthened governance, according to Kostas Georgakopoulos, CTO and CISO at Mondelēz. 

“The conversation around our strategy really centered around making sure that the investment … would bear fruit and have an ROI that we can concretely share with the business,” Georgakopoulos told CIO Dive. 

Mondelēz, maker of Oreo, Ritz, and Chips Ahoy, among other brands, operates an on-premises SAP ERP system nearing its end of life. Transitioning to a cloud-based ERP has its perks but upgrading can also prove to be a long, grueling process. 

SAP has added financial incentives and technical support services to encourage customer migrations off on-premises systems as support cliffs loom. More than half of SAP’s customers using on-premises solutions risk running out of maintenance support by its 2027 deadline, Basis Technologies CTO David Lees said in 2024.

Strategically, Mondelēz wanted to be closer to the start of the incoming wave of upgrades. 

“SAP has been pretty clear about their support model and the cost structure,” Georgakopoulos said. “We felt we needed to be on the front end of the opportunity because it affords us greater visibility with SAP and more resources available versus going at the latter part and competing with more organizations for scarce resources to transition.”

Georgakopoulos said the company has worked with SAP as a strategic partner, ensuring access to adequate staffing and a “significant” level of support. The company spent around $9 million on preliminary planning for the ERP implementation in the six months ending June 30, 2024. 

The snack maker also tapped AWS in December as its strategic cloud provider. 

“One of the key considerations for us was cost efficiency,” Georgakopoulos said. “The ability to transform our operations was another.”

Mondelēz took all three hyperscalers into consideration and spent countless hours poring over the details, comparing feature sets, levels of innovation and potential to co-innovate, Georgakopoulos said. 

The company has an internal engineering team made up of 35 workers. The chosen cloud provider needed to be able to maximize that team’s work and unlock efficiencies, such as through AI.  

“We calculated total cost of ownership had we stayed with one cloud or another, and we felt the better package presented was offered by AWS and it was material,” Georgakopoulos said. 

With AWS, Georgakopoulos said Mondelēz would be able to access capabilities on SAP S/4 at least a year earlier than they would if they had chosen to go with one of the other providers. 

“The team is empowered and enabled not only for the digital transformation with AWS, but we are re-platforming Google, we are exiting four data centers from DXC at the same time and migrating hundreds of workloads from Azure,” Georgakopoulos said. “We couldn’t do that if we didn’t have a highly experienced team of outstanding engineers.”

2025 priorities and beyond

As Mondelēz navigates its digital transformation, the food manufacturer is also facing micro and macroeconomic headwinds. 

Mondelēz executives estimated during its Q4 2024 earnings results that higher cocoa prices and inflation would lower its adjusted earnings per share in 2025 by approximately 10%. 

“This is a very challenging year with the market and with cocoa pricing,” Georgakopoulos said. “The impact is substantial.”

The Hershey Company, which also flagged pressure from higher cocoa prices, is undergoing an ERP overhaul of its own. The Kisses maker weathered a sales and inventory dip in 2024 during its phased upgrade to SAP’s S/4 HANA. 

Like Hershey, Mondelēz is working to hone its focus on optimizing operations during the transition period and increasing cost-cutting measures. 

“If there’s one thing that we can do, and have done, and continue to iterate on is optimizing our current footprint, whether that’s infrastructure, applications, use cases,” Georgakopoulos said. “We have been very clear and focused on leveraging S/4 capabilities that are available out of the box, eliminating to the degree that we can any customization from our ERP environment and ensuring we standardize across the business in terms of processes for ease of use, efficiency and cost savings.”

Mondelēz plans to conclude the ERP project in 2028 after a region-by-region implementation. For now, it’s all about laying the groundwork to stay on track. 

“You can’t just do a lift-and-shift,” Georgakopoulos said. 

Teams are going through all the ERP customizations — which translates to millions of lines of code — to determine where cuts can be made to simplify the transition. “In many cases, we can eliminate it and use functionality straight out of the S/4 box,” Georgakopoulos said.

The company has adopted Amazon Q to assist in software development, such as by writing shell scripts and boosting productivity. Georgakopoulos estimated the tools have brought efficiency gains of around 20%. 

Using generative AI in the ERP system, however, is still out of reach.

“We’re probably 12 to 18 months away from really putting water through the pipes to test and validate whether that would work,” Georgakopoulos said. 

Even with a long road ahead, Georgakopoulos expressed pride in how the organization’s approach to technology has matured. 

“When I came to the company four years ago … we had lost the ability to control, manage and enable our strategy and vision,” Georgakopoulos said. “We’ve changed that paradigm. We are leading the transformation.”

 

PepsiCo is aiming to accelerate its enterprisewide digital transformation as part of a multiyear agreement with AWS announced May 7, 2025.

IT modernization, cloud migration and generative AI are among the key initiatives. The snack and beverage company plans to build, iterate and test capabilities on AWS for its employees and customers after migrating applications and workloads. Improving real-time insights and boosting operational efficiency are also on the docket.

The household brand has already integrated its internal generative AI platform, PepGenX, with Amazon Bedrock to increase flexibility and capability for application development, the companies said. 

PepsiCo continues its steady march of modernization, leveling up capabilities and strengthening the technology foundation along the way. 

“We plan to use data and AI in a much more scaled way, and we were not able to do that five years ago … because our data was not in a way that our people could be empowered to use the data, as they are today,” PepsiCo CEO Ramon Laguarta said during a conference in 2024. 

The AWS partnership builds on the company’s commitment to execute “a much more aggressive” data and AI strategy that Laguarta laid out in February 2024, which relies on PepsiCo’s cloud infrastructure.  

“A cloud-first approach has been essential to PepsiCo's ongoing digital transformation,” Athina Kanioura, EVP and chief strategy and transformation officer at PepsiCo, said in the May 7 announcement. “This strategic collaboration will strengthen our mature cloud strategy and unlock new levels of agility, intelligence and scalability across the company.”

As PepsiCo expanded its cloud estate, executives worked to manage costs. 

Enterprises across industries are facing ballooning cloud bills as AI adoption drives up costs. Nearly three in four IT pros blamed the AI boom for “unmanageable” cloud bills in 2024, a Vanson Bourne report found.

Up and down supermarket aisles, familiar brands are facing headwinds as consumers cut back spending and tariff talk sparks uncertainty, raising the stakes for big technology investments. Clorox pushed back against analyst concerns over the cost of its IT modernization initiatives during a February 2025 earnings call, emphasizing the long-term value that would be added. 

Businesses may put some projects on hold if the outlook dampens. 

“The reality of a slowing economy and rising unemployment will have a direct impact on IT spending,” IDC said in an April 2025 research note.