Mastering the slippery slope of digital transformation to enable game-changing performance

From the July-August 2025 edition of Supply Chain Management Review.

July-August 2025

In this month's issue of Supply Chain Management Review, we look at what lessons supply chain leaders can take from Olympic skier Lindsay Vonn’s career to ensure their digital transformation is a success. In…

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"I want to keep pushing the limits to see what’s possible. That’s the nice thing about ski racing—no one is stopping you from going faster."

—Lindsey Vonn

In mid-March 2009, at the World Cup finals in Åre Sweden, Lindsey Vonn did something remarkable: She won both the downhill and super-G, Alpine skiing’s glamor speed events. Vonn finished the World Cup season with 1,788 points, a decisive 384-point margin over second place Maria Riesch. Vonn didn’t just defend her overall World Cup title, she put the skiing world on notice: She wouldn’t settle for business as usual. Over the next 10 years, Vonn rewrote Alpine skiing’s record book, securing her place as one of skiing’s greatest competitors.

Vonn’s 2008-2009 season was remarkable for another reason: She started racing on men’s skis, an unheard of technology shift. Men’s skis are longer, stiffer, and potentially faster, but much, much harder to control (the reason women typically don’t use them). Vonn embraced the risk—a bold move calculated to shave fractions of a second off her race times. With results decided by tenths or hundredths of a second, Vonn’s decision proved a game-changer. You must be just as bold—and calculating—as you make the technology choices that will define your supply chain capabilities. Your margins for error aren’t much bigger than Vonn’s.

 

Now, a little backstory to stress why you should read on. In August 2008, the U.S. ski team trained in New Zealand. Skiing slalom next to Olympic gold medalist Ted Ligety in super icy conditions, Vonn couldn’t get a grip. She was sliding all over. Conversely, Ligety was crushing it. In typical Vonn style, she asked, “What are you using?” and then, “Can I try them?” Baffled, Ligety replied, “They’re men’s skis.” Minutes later, on Ligety’s skis, Vonn carved through the gates effortlessly. Her take: “It was the easiest slalom I’d ever had. They were so much faster.”

What happened next? At Levi, Finland, the season’s first World Cup slalom, Vonn put the men’s skis to the test—and won! Three weeks later, Vonn won downhill at Lake Louis. Vonn recalls that rumors quickly spread that she was testing men’s skis. Rivals thought, “She’s insane. … She’ll never be able to make the turns.” As Vonn racked up wins, the chatter changed to “Wow!” You can guess what happened. Other women tried to make a go on men’s skis. They couldn’t, however, make the turns.

Can you relate? Do you operate in an intensely competitive industry, where rivals monitor and copy each other’s tech investments? In our 30 years’ experience working with SC leaders, we’ve frequently met managers who lamented: “Our industry’s technology arms race is keeping me awake at night.” Their anxiety: We can’t afford to fight tomorrow’s competitive battles with yesterday’s technology. The perceived need to keep pace has led many companies, like Vonn’s rivals, to invest in tech that just didn’t work for them.

The timing of Vonn’s technology shift may also resonate. Hit hard by the 2008-2009 financial crash, Rossignol, Vonn’s sponsor, cut one-third of its global staff and slashed skiers’ salaries 50%. This economic threat spurred Vonn to find a better ski. This too may feel familiar. Economic pain has rocked most industries, forcing decision makers to rethink their companies’ value-creation capabilities. The go-to response: Turn to tech for a solution.

With Vonn on the market for a new ski and a new sponsor, Head Sports GmbH made a calculated play. Head’s CEO, Johan Eliasch, met with Vonn to seal the deal. His pitch: “I have a technician for you.” Knowing Vonn valued talent—and teamwork—he offered Bode Miller’s “ski man,” Heinz Hämmerle. Vonn couldn’t resist. No technician on the slopes could get more out of a pair of skis than Magic Heinzi, as Vonn called him. With the right skis and the right team, Vonn was ready to chase Alpine skiing greatness.

Vonn’s realities likely parallel yours. You both face fierce rivals intent to keep you off the podium. And you both rely on technology to stay in the mix. Vonn, however, made sure her approach to tech elevated her preparation and delivered remarkable results—likely two of your goals. Vonn’s secret: She recognized that tech either distracts or enables. By being deliberate and disciplined, she made tech work for her. Her approach follows six principles that define the fall line to successful technology adoption. Before we explore Vonn’s approach, let’s consider why so many companies crash out on the slippery slope of technology.

It’s harder than it looks

Think back to your first ski trip, that is, if you didn’t grow up on skis. Friends had perhaps hyped their exploits on the slopes, igniting your sense of missing out—and your desire to belong. No doubt, if you had watched skiing on TV, you had sensed skiing’s adrenaline rush and were even more psyched to strap on skis and whoosh down a mountain. Experienced skiers make it look so easy. You may have even thought: “I’m a good athlete, I can do this.”

Now, what was your reality? When you stepped off the lift for your first run, did you—like most first-timers—spend more time picking yourself up off the slopes than whooshing down them? Perhaps you’ve tried to forget this part of the story. Now, the good news, science is starting to grasp why there’s a gap between the aspirations you had and the outcomes you experienced.

The explanation starts with the concept of a growth mindset—the mentality that gives us confidence we can do new things. When our growth mindset is hijacked by lack of perspective, we fail to appreciate the experts’ depth of skill. We underestimate the effort, and often painful learning, they invested to make “it” look easy. Confirmation bias further distorts our perspective, telling us, “I’ve done hard things before. I’ve got this.”

Here’s the catch. We don’t know what we don’t know. And our brain remembers past positive outcomes more vividly than the difficult journey required to achieve them. Reality ultimately restores perspective and resets expectations. Now, a question: Does this pattern sound familiar? It should. In the SC technology world, we describe this path as the Hype Cycle.

What’s your takeaway? If you jump on new tech out of the starting gate, you will likely struggle. Check out Figure 2, which shows popular technologies of the past 40 years that tracked to the Hype Cycle. Early adopters chased elusive benefits, burning resources—both time and money. They seldom emerged first on the slope of enlightenment. Chasing the Hype Cycle is as expensive as it is ineffective. Our five yard-sale stories illustrate the costs of “sloppy” technology adoption. Vonn’s deliberate, disciplined approach models how you can avoid riding the peak of inflated expectations only to get stuck in the trough of disillusionment.

 

A proven path to the technology podium

Vonn’s deliberate, disciplined approach to technology is as unique as she is, largely because it emerged from her world view. Consider three traits.

1. An adrenaline junkie, Vonn loved ripping down mountains at 85 mph. She often said, “Adrenaline is something I feed off of; I need it. I love it. It’s what gets me going. I need a challenge, something to push me.”
2. Gritty—and fearless—Vonn hated to lose and was willing to pay a steep price to win. She trained harder than anyone and endured painful rehabs to get back on the slopes.
3. As an eyes-wide-open scanner, Vonn was an all-of-the-above tinkerer. If anything—from tech to training—could enable her quest for success, she was willing to check it out. One outcome: No woman on the World Cup circuit paid more attention to her equipment than Vonn.

Your takeaway: Vonn possessed a singular focus, i.e., she knew what she wanted: To push her limits to go faster. And although she was open to out-of-the-box thinking, she didn’t buy into technology silver bullets. Her proven path focused on process and preparation.

Gate #1: DO approach technology as an enabler

Vonn—known for fast, powerful starts out of the gate—described her state of mind in the gate as automatized, i.e., calm and in the moment. In those brief moments Vonn could … “… see the entire course spilling out in front of me. I anticipated exactly what I’d have to do five, ten, twenty gates down the mountain, while remaining focused on the gate that was right in front of me. That was always my approach … It helped me stay in the moment and made the impossible feel possible.”

Being in the moment didn’t just happen. It was the result of hours of brutal gym work, a careful course analysis, prepping the right skis, and visualizing the course “a thousand times in my head.” Vonn leveraged technology, but only as an enabler. Tech was a small but vital part of her holistic preparation, not the driver of her strategy.

Many companies slip up, letting tech take over. Thibault Boldin, Heineken’s chief transformation officer, commented on this lapse, saying, “most companies manage transformation as a tech project.” One result: Digital transformations suffer a huge failure rate—north of 70% according to McKinsey.

Heineken’s European operations redesign succeeded because Boldin stayed deliberate. He trusted a holistic process to ensure tech-enabled core goals: Harmonizing and leveraging network operations, simplifying product and packaging complexity, and reducing Heineken’s carbon footprint. Consider how his “heads, hearts, and hands” approach enabled strategy.

• Heads: Address the questions in people’s heads, i.e., the whys driving the change.
• Hearts: Engage people in the transformation and incorporate their feedback.
• Hands: Stay focused on capabilities, both the ones you are building and the ones your people possess so they can support the end processes.

You might think this approach constrained the tech tools Heineken used. It didn’t. Heineken employed all of today’s hot tech—AI, big data, digital twins, and robotics—to get to targeted outcomes. Ultimately, Heineken went from 25 planning teams to one, reduced bottle types and packaging 50%, and cut carbon emissions 24% (compared to 2018). 

 

Gate #2: DON’T forget the 3 Ps

Vonn was a tech enthusiast. She relied on tech to give her an edge in training—in the gym, on the slope, and in her after-action analyses—during races, and ultimately to rebuild the knee that forced her retirement. She knew, however, that tech couldn’t make up for a lack of preparation, which she grounded in the 3Ps.

1. People. The first P started with Vonn. Per Lunstam, Red Bull’s director of athlete performance, described Vonn as relentless, “looking behind every door, every rock” for ways to go faster. He described her as “so in tune with her equipment, with her own body, with preparation.” Vonn’s team prepared like she did. She lauded Magic Heinzi who “tuned her skis for hours on end” and Lindsay Winninger who “helped me get back from all my injuries.” Her point: “The team is everything.” Each team member leveraged tech to enhance Vonn’s preparation.
2. Process. Vonn lived the Vonn way—“on the slopes and off.” Employing tech to gain an edge in every aspect of preparation was part of the Vonn way.
3. Performance measurement. Consider this Vonnism: “To get to the next level, what is there I can change?” Vonn drove change via measurement, using the latest tech the Red Bull High Performance Center offered or going old school, taking notes on the feel of her skis. She was the rare skier who watched film of her crashes, always looking for a way to improve. The bottom line: Vonn got tech right by making the 3Ps part of the Vonn way.

To improve the performance of the Xbox production process, Microsoft turned to digital transformation. To gain engineers’ buy-in, Jerry Knoben, corporate VP of manufacturing and supply chain, turned to the 3Ps.

Process & performance measurement. Stage 1 involved building control towers to create visibility into how key processes really worked. A year of data collection and discovery led to dashboards that displayed “everything we cared about” from suppliers to shipping. Here’s the key: The team repeatedly asked, “What’s the vital data to hit our key KPIs?”

People. Stages 2 and 3 built out predictive analytic and machine learning capabilities. Here’s the key: As the AI system’s training progressed, it shared alerts. For example: “Yesterday, when this occurred, you did this. Maybe you should do the same.” Over time, the AI earned the engineers’ trust. They turned routine quality problems over to AI so they could focus on “bigger” things—a big deal in a setting where “you get yelled at for cost problems but fired for bad quality.” Staying focused on the 3Ps helps you build momentum in the technology arms race.

Gate #3: DO link technology adoption to capabilities

From a young age, Vonn was fast. She attacked the fall line, the straightest route to the finish, and aggressively leaned into her turns. Two realizations transformed Vonn’s love of speed into a deliberate, disciplined quest for speed.

1. Losing didn’t feel good. Vonn discovered that “if I wasn’t winning, I didn’t like the feeling.” Vonn decided to figure out how to avoid that feeling in the future.
2. She could find a way. As she watched U.S. ski team rivals on the slopes, Vonn realized, “I couldn’t will anyone else to go slower … but I could find the ways to make myself faster.”

Vonn resolved to do “whatever I needed to, all in service of being fast.” And she did, targeting each investment to enhance her ability to go fast. She viewed risks the same way, saying, “taking risks became second nature—as long as the risks I took could make me faster.”

Walmart is equally capabilities-driven. In the 1990s, Walmart relied on a technology-capabilities map to evaluate tech investments. Desired capabilities appeared across the top, potential technologies on the left. Tech that didn’t enable critical capabilities didn’t make the cut. Today, Walmart is putting tech to the test via its digital transformation. The goal: Leverage EDLP, enhance the customer experience, and enable faster omnichannel delivery. Consider how Walmart is investing to become a legitimate threat to Amazon’s online dominance.

• Walmart developed Walmart Global Tech to modernize its website, build a next-gen search engine, and create mobile apps.
• Walmart partnered with Microsoft to use the tech company’s AI, cloud, IoT, and machine learning solutions to enhance forecasting, product placement, and the shopping experience.
• Walmart leveraged its 4,600 stores to enable customers to buy online, pick up in store, a big deal as over 90% of U.S. consumers live within 10 minutes of a Walmart store.
• Walmart launched Walmart+ and InHome to make home delivery attractive. Same-day deliveries can be made to over 93% of U.S. addresses.
• Walmart invested in micro-fulfillment centers as well as Spark, a home delivery service, to make home delivery convenient. Ninety-five percent of orders can be picked in 12 minutes.

The result: Post-pandemic, Walmart has doubled its share of U.S. e-commerce sales. David Guggina, EVP supply chain operations, argues that digitization has enabled the retailer to “meet customers where they want to be met.” Amazon is now playing catch-up.

 

Gate #4: DON’T stray from the fall line

By linking technology—and everything else she did—to her quest for speed, Vonn made it easier to set priorities and avoid distractions. Her decision rule: “If something wasn’t going to bring me success on the slopes, then I ought not to be doing it.”

Many SC decision makers have yet to figure this out. They get distracted by technology detours (see Table 2) and stray from the technology-adoption fall line. Zara is an exception. In the early 2000s, Xan Salgado Badás, head of IT, had a decision to make: Replace Zara’s existing (and quite old) DOS-based point-of-sales (POS) terminals with a modern POS platform, or not. Salgado and his team very deliberately weighed the pros and cons before sticking with the DOS-based system. Why, you ask? The old system worked, supporting exceptional store growth. More critically, the new POS platforms didn’t provide any new and needed capabilities.

You may think Zara is a tech laggard. That’s not the case. In the early 2010s, Zara cracked the code for using RFID to better manage inventory. Having learned from others’ mistakes, Zara put the RFID chip inside the security tags it attached to each item, allowing for reuse. Zara could better find the items customers wanted and reduced by 90% the time needed to conduct a storewide inventory count. More frequent counts provided a more accurate view of fashion trends. Zara is now in the midst of an AI-enabled digital transformation, building out its omnichannel capabilities— and being disciplined enough to stick to the tech fall line.

 

Gate #5: DO leverage tech to innovate

Seeking efficiency through tech was a part of Vonn’s routine. After each run, for example, Magic Heinzi asked, “Does it ski fast? Does it turn well? Do I like it? Do I not like it?” The goal: Make the small changes that make a difference in performance. Heinz did more than use the information to tune Vonn’s skis. He also took more substantive insights to the engineers at the Head factory, who tweaked the construction or design of Vonn’s ski.

Vonn also pursued radical innovation. Her switch to men’s skis typifies her willingness to do “whatever it took for me to be the best, even when it meant doing things differently.” Earlier in her career, she brought ultrahigh-speed, high-definition video to skiing. Her goal: Evaluate the interplay between her equipment and snow conditions. And in 2024, she became the first Alpine racer to ski on a titanium knee, a game-changer that enabled her to become the oldest woman to reach a World Cup podium. Vonn never stopped leveraging tech to innovate. She always sought a “way to be better and faster.”

IKEA shares the same mindset, i.e., seek efficiencies while pursuing innovation. Check out the AI across IKEA’s fulfillment processes. AI algorithms enhance IKEA’s online media, automate warehousing and distribution, forecast demand and optimize inventory to get the right SKUs in stock in the store while minimizing overstocks, and streamline the checkout process. Efficiencies earned stack up, keeping IKEA in the retail race. BCG, for instance, estimates that AI-enablement delivers a 15% reduction in inventory costs and a 30% increase in service levels.

But IKEA is pushing its, and AI’s, limits to create an online shopping experience just as immersive and memorable as visiting one of its labyrinthine stores. Picture this. You snap a few photos, upload them to IKEA’s Kreativ app (launched in 2024) and voila, in a few brief moments, you get a 3D model of your room, i.e., a virtual showroom. Using LiDar, AI, and VR, Kreativ enables you to pick and place IKEA’s modern pieces in your own living space. You can play with options until you get just the right look and feel—and share them with friends to get their take. The result: Online sales reached 26% in 2024, and product returns dropped 20%. 

Gate #6: DON’T get out over your skis

Google “Lindsey Vonn quotes.” You’ll find one that stands as a warning: “You have to push limits in order to find your limits.” Vonn spent her career trying to get as close as humanly possible to her limits. Sometimes she pushed too hard, and crashed—this despite hours and hours invested in testing her equipment, taking notes, and working with Magic Heinzi to make sure any needed fixes were made.

Vonn would argue: “I know the risks, I accept the risks, but I’m not afraid of the risks.” She would likewise acknowledge that pushing the limits was “possibly the biggest downfall in my career.” Injuries caused her to miss major portions of four World Cup seasons and forced her to retire in 2019. Of course, pushing the limits, combined with her personal grit and intense preparation, is what made Vonn arguably the greatest downhill skier ever.

Domino’s has pushed technology’s limits to enable you to order how you want, wherever you are (almost). The goal: Redefine convenience to dominate delivery. Consider your options.

1. AnyWare ordering. You order via app, smart TV, voice assistant, social media, or your favorite wearable. And you can stay connected via real-time tracking and “Points for Pies.”
2. Carside delivery. You order and pay online. When you arrive, you sign in and a Domino’s employee will deliver to your car in fewer than two minutes, or your next pizza is free.
3. Pinpoint delivery. You pick the place, say a park bench or a beach, you open the app and drop a pin, and your pizza will be delivered to you, wherever you are (almost).

The result: Domino’s has passed Pizza Hut to become the largest, fastest-growing, and most profitable major pizza chain in the world—and 85% of orders are made digitally.

Here’s what’s remarkable: From launch, each innovation just works, seamlessly. And you’ve never heard about a Domino’s yard sale. Why not? According to Kelly Garcia, Domino’s chief technology officer, Domino’s makes its tech stackable, like Legos—and a “fail-fast” culture with extensive testing done early identifies the ideas that will likely work, and those that won’t. Garcia notes that testing “takes the emotion out of it. We let the data speak.” Because Domino’s is disciplined enough to not get out over its skis, you may see robots and autonomous delivery soon, two ideas Domino’s is testing today. 

Conclusion

Now, a warning: The six gates will help you get IT right, but they aren’t foolproof. Vonn says crashes are inevitable, “part of the job description.” What do the six gates do? They help you mitigate risks as they guide your quest to use tech as a game changer.

One final thought: When you crash, get up, and get back in the race. Walmart, a highly successful tech adopter going back 40 years, popularized crossdocking in the 1980s, but crashed out with RFID in the early 2000s. Walmart didn’t back away from tech, but stuck to the deliberate Do’s and disciplined Don’ts. The result: Walmart rewrote the rules for omnichannel retailing.

If you are going to push the limits, “scratching and clawing to get to the finish,” Vonn offers a hint: You need to “have a short-term memory.” That’s the nature of technology’s slippery slope. 

About the authors

Stanley E. Fawcett, Ph.D., is a professor of global supply chain management at Logistikum Steyr, University of Applied Sciences, Upper Austria, and chief engagement officer, ENGAGE2E.... He can be reached at [email protected].

Sebastian Brockhaus Ph.D., is an assistant professor of supply chain management at the Monte Ahuja College of Business at Cleveland State University. He can be reached at [email protected].

Amydee M. Fawcett, Ph.D., CEO, ENGAGE2E.... She can be reached at [email protected].

A. Michael Knemeyer, Ph.D., is a professor of logistics at Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University. He can be reached at [email protected].

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