AnalysisConsulting3 min read
51% of tech investments fail to meet goals, Eagle Hill finds
Eagle Hill Consulting reported on 9 March 2026 that 51% of 200 surveyed senior business leaders said recent technology investments failed to achieve intended outcomes, with insufficient change-management planning cited as the primary cause.
More than half of senior business leaders surveyed in March 2026 by Eagle Hill Consulting reported that their recent technology investments failed to achieve intended outcomes. The finding comes from a survey of 200 senior decision makers conducted by Ipsos between 3 and 9 March 2026 across industries in the United States, according to a statement published by the firm on 9 March 2026.
The planning gap
Only 35% of surveyed leaders said their organization considered the impact on daily work before rolling out the technology, according to the Eagle Hill survey. Underestimating that impact on daily work was the most frequently cited reason why technology investments fell short of expectations, the statement said.
The data points to a gap between deployment and adoption. Technology goes live, but the work does not change, or it changes in ways the organization did not plan for.
Why investments fail
About one-third of respondents cited continued use of legacy processes and workarounds as a primary reason technology investments failed to deliver expected value, according to the survey. That suggests the new system arrived, but the old ways of working remained in place alongside it.
The pattern is familiar in organizations that treat technology rollout as a finish line rather than a starting point. The software is configured, the training is delivered, and the project is closed. Behavior change, if it happens at all, happens later and without a plan.
What works differently
The survey identified three practices in organizations achieving stronger returns on technology investments, according to Eagle Hill. Those organizations start with the work, not the technology. They measure changed behavior, not just technology usage. And they manage technology adoption as an ongoing operational discipline, not a project with an end date.
"Organizations often think the finish line is go-live, but that is really the beginning of the hard work," said Melissa Jezior, President and Chief Executive Officer of Eagle Hill Consulting, in the statement. "Technology alone does not create value. People using it differently do."
Jezior added that many organizations treat technology change management as a training and communications exercise. "The organizations that get the greatest return on technology investments take a different approach," she said.
What it means for consulting buyers
The survey data suggests that technology ROI depends on change discipline, not just deployment capability. A consulting firm that proposes a technology rollout without a plan to measure behavior change after go-live is proposing half the engagement.
The 51% failure rate is high, but the sample is small and the survey does not specify which types of technology investments failed most often, what the median investment size was, or how failure rates varied by industry or organization size. Those gaps limit how far the finding can be generalized.
What the data does show is where planning breaks down. If only 35% of organizations consider the impact on daily work before rollout, the majority are deploying systems without asking how the work will change or who will need to do something differently. That is a planning failure, not a technology failure.
For buyers evaluating proposals, the question is whether the scope includes measuring behavior change and managing adoption as an ongoing discipline. If the answer is no, the proposal is for deployment, not for value realization.