𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

ITI Group is a Business Reporter client

Research suggests that around 70 per cent of digital projects fail to meet their expected goals. For businesses running critical facilities, where unplanned downtime, safety failures and regulatory breaches carry real consequences, that’s not just a disappointing statistic. It’s a warning.

The pressure to act is real. The rush to act is the problem.

Industrial businesses face no shortage of reasons to change. Ageing assets, a retiring workforce, evolving cyber-threats, energy price volatility, tightening regulation and the push towards decarbonisation all demand action. These forces aren’t going away.

But the current wave of hype around AI and automation has turned that pressure into something less useful. “Leaders have a fear of missing out,” says Paul Bayliss, COO of ITI Group, an independent systems integrator with over 50 years serving critical infrastructure. “This is really a forced sense of urgency that leaders are pushed into. They start to ask the wrong questions, and if they ask the wrong questions, they’re going to get the wrong answers.”

Too often, organisations invest in technology before they’ve defined the problem it’s supposed to solve, or commit to a “big bang” rollout that looks compelling in a boardroom presentation but collapses under the weight of operational reality.

So the scepticism many leaders feel isn’t irrational. As Dominic Molloy, ITI Group’s Chief Revenue Officer, puts it: “Their scepticism isn’t necessarily around the technology. It’s around the way the programme was implemented.” It comes from lived experience of projects that delivered more risk, more cost and limited adoption instead.

Start with the problem, not the platform

What separates the initiatives that work from the majority that don’t? The examples are telling. A large food distributor was convinced it needed to invest tens of millions of pounds in a new facility to increase throughput. Rather than jumping to a capital investment, ITI Group started with the operation itself. The team built a digital twin of the existing facility, identified where the real inefficiencies sat, and helped the client realign its processes. No new facility was needed. Tens of millions saved.

“The real transformation happens when they realise they have to adapt the way they lead, the way they manage their decision-making process,” says Molloy. The most effective programmes don’t begin with technology. They begin with a clear understanding of the outcome an organisation actually needs.

Ambitious, pragmatic, patient

“Digital transformation is a must. It’s not optional,” says CEO Dominic Murphy. “If you don’t embrace change, you will not stay competitive.” But as Business Unit Director Oliver Stone adds: “Digital transformation takes time. We have to be patient and pragmatic.”

ITI Group is also addressing the pressures driving change in the first place. Through apprenticeships, early-career development and STEM outreach, the company is building the skills pipeline that British industry will depend on as experienced engineers retire and the demands on operational technology continue to grow.

The full conversation between ITI Group’s leadership team explores these themes in depth – including how the company delivers change without disrupting live operations, and what they’d say to any industrial leader still weighing up whether to take the first step.

ITI Group is an independent, UK-headquartered technology specialist that enables critical facilities with integrated intelligent systems for safer, more resilient, smarter, more profitable, and more sustainable operations.