Three quarters of firms plan to increase business transformation investment

PEX Network’s key takeaways:

• Three quarters (74 percent) of surveyed organizations plan to increase business transformation investment, according to a new study from SAP and Forrester Consulting.
• Only 6 percent of businesses qualify as ‘leaders’ with the maturity required to execute transformation effectively.
• Uneven execution and the lack of an overall strategy hamper business transformation efforts.

Three quarters of surveyed organizations plan to increase business transformation investment, despite only 6 percent qualifying as ‘leaders’ with the maturity required to execute transformation effectively. That’s according to a new study from SAP in collaboration with Forrester Consulting.

The ‘From Ambition To Execution: Building Repeatable Business Transformation survey’ was conducted online with over 1,000 cross-industry senior decision-makers at organizations in APAC, EMEA, Latin America, and North America.

It found that while 74 percent of businesses are looking to increase transformation spend, many still treat business transformation as a series of disconnected projects, limited to specific functions or technology upgrades.

This fragmented approach slows execution, reduces impact, and prevents organizations from realizing the full value of their investments.

PEX Network’s own industry research, the PEX Report 2025/26, found that businesses have diverse transformation investment plans for the coming year. A substantial 40 percent of respondents expect their transformation budget to remain flat over the next 12 months, while a quarter (25 percent) expect it to increase. A similar number (24 percent) are unsure, with only 11 percent predicting their budget to decrease.

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Firms plan to increase business transformation investment

Competitive pressures, systemic risks, technological disruption, and workforce shifts are reshaping the modern business landscape. As a result, most organizations run multiple transformations simultaneously.

In fact, the SAP-Forrester research revealed that 72 percent of organizations are pursuing four or more transformation initiatives annually. Over half of businesses (52 percent) plan to increase transformation investments by between 11 percent and 20 percent in the next 12 months, while another 22 percent expect to boost spending by more than 20 percent. Only 1 percent plan to reduce investment.

However, uneven execution and the lack of an overall strategy hamper transformation efforts. What’s more, 56 percent of respondents struggle with poor data, 55 percent encounter persistent organizational silos, and 52 percent highlight employee fatigue from continuous change.

Governance is also an issue. Only 24 percent of organizations have a cross-functional transformation governance board and just 25 percent embed transformation goals into KPIs.

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What is the “6 percent club” in business transformation?

The survey segmented respondents into four business transformation 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 percent of the surveyed firms qualified as transformation leaders, with most organizations still facing significant gaps in execution, governance, and cultural alignment. 

However, 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 percent).
• Faster upskilling and reskilling of the workforce (66 percent).
• Faster execution of strategic initiatives (65 percent).
• Increased consistency and reliability in process execution (65 percent).
• Increased leadership alignment and accountability (64 percent).

“Transformation challenges will always exist, particularly in aligning localized execution with an enterprise-wide approach,” said Dee Houchen, head of marketing for SAP Signavio and SAP LeanIX. “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.”

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