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Claim check

“70% of digital transformations fail (BCG and McKinsey)”

BCG did publish a 70% figure for digital transformations in 2020. It comes from executives’ own ratings and BCG’s client work, and it means “fall short of their objectives”: 44% of the transformations created some value. McKinsey published no 70% figure for digital transformations; its 70% lines, about change programmes and transformations in general, give no source. No source has measured how often AI transformations fail.

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Verdict Needs correcting

The source exists, but the claim gets the year, the population or the wording wrong.

Kind of figure Self-reported

What people said in a survey or interview, not measured.

Holds for Digital transformations, as rated by 825 senior executives and seen in BCG’s work with 70 client companies, reported in October 2020. It does not hold for AI transformations or for change programmes in general.

The claim

70% of digital transformations fail, according to research by Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey. The same 70% is now quoted for AI transformations.

How the claim travelled

Each step is a publication that passed the claim on, oldest first, with its exact words and what changed.

  1. Press

    Harvard Business Review (Michael Beer and Nitin Nohria) · archived copy

    “The brutal fact is that about 70% of all change initiatives fail.”

    What changed: Dead end. The figure is about “all change initiatives”, with no source, no count and no meaning of “fail”. A peer-reviewed review in 2011 found no valid and reliable evidence for a 70% failure rate of organizational change.

  2. Consultancy

    McKinsey & Company (Boris Ewenstein, Wesley Smith and Ashvin Sologar) · archived copy

    “We know, for example, that 70 percent of change programs fail to achieve their goals, largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support.”

    What changed: Dead end. McKinsey states the figure as known fact (“We know”) and adds two causes. No source or method is given. It is about change programmes, not digital transformations. A 2022 McKinsey interview repeats 70% for transformations in general, again with no source.

  3. Research

    Boston Consulting Group (Patrick Forth, Tom Reichert, Romain de Laubier and Saibal Chakraborty) · archived copy

    “New BCG research shows that 70% of digital transformations fall short of their objectives, often with profound consequences.”

    What changed: Origin of the digital figure. 825 senior executives rated their transformations, and BCG added its work with 70 clients. The 70% is the 44% that created some value but missed targets, plus the 26% that created less than half. The subject becomes “digital transformations”, and the words are “fall short”.

  4. Vendor

    Mavim · archived copy

    “Research from Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey consistently shows that 70% of digital transformation initiatives fail to meet their objectives.”

    What changed: “Fall short of their objectives” becomes “fail to meet their objectives”, and the headline says “fail”. McKinsey is added as a second source. “Consistently” turns one 2020 result into a lasting pattern. The page is by a company that sells process management software.

  5. Consultancy

    Fortune (Julia Dhar, Kristy R. Ellmer and Philip Jameson) · archived copy

    “Corporate transformations fail much more often than they succeed. The failure rate is around 70% and this figure has not improved in decades.”

    What changed: Three BCG authors, writing in Fortune, give “around 70%” for corporate transformations in general. “Digital” is dropped. The figure is said to be unchanged for decades. No source is linked.

  6. Vendor

    Delos · archived copy

    “70% of enterprise AI transformations fail. Not because of the technology — because of the people. Here's the 5-pillar framework that separates the 30% who succeed from the 70% who don't.”

    What changed: “Digital transformations” becomes “enterprise AI transformations”. No source is given. The page is by a company that sells AI software, and it offers a framework for joining “the 30% who succeed”.

What the primary source says

The only published source that gives 70% for digital transformations is Flipping the Odds of Digital Transformation Success, an article published by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) on 29 October 2020. BCG sells consulting on digital transformation. The article ends with six success factors, and says that getting them right “flips the odds for success from 30% to 80%”.

How it was done. BCG used two sets of data. The first was its own experience working with 70 “leading companies worldwide” on their digital transformations “over the past several years”. The second was a survey of 825 senior executives whose companies had undertaken transformations. The executives rated their transformations on a scale of 1 to 10. Success included the share of targets met and value created, whether that happened on time, and how the transformation compared with others and with management’s aims for lasting change. The article does not give the survey dates, the countries or where the lines between the groups were drawn.

What it found. 30% of transformations “met or exceeded their target value and resulted in sustainable change”. 44% “created some value but did not meet their targets and resulted in only limited long-term change”. 26% “created limited value (less than 50% of the target), producing no sustainable change”.

Where the 70% appears. The article opens: “New BCG research shows that 70% of digital transformations fall short of their objectives, often with profound consequences.” The 70% is the 44% plus the 26%.

Where the older 70% comes from. Before BCG, the 70% was repeated for change programmes in general. In 2000, Michael Beer and Nitin Nohria wrote in Harvard Business Review that “about 70% of all change initiatives fail”. In 2015, a McKinsey article said “We know, for example, that 70 percent of change programs fail to achieve their goals”. Neither gives a source. In 2011, Mark Hughes reviewed five published instances of the figure in the Journal of Change Management and concluded that “there is no valid and reliable empirical evidence to support such a narrative.”

What is wrong with the claim

  • “Fall short” became “fail”. BCG’s 70% includes the 44% of transformations that created some value but missed their targets. Only 26% created less than half of their target value.
  • The figure is what executives said. It comes from executives rating their own transformations, together with BCG’s client experience. The article does not say that results were checked against records.
  • McKinsey did not publish it. McKinsey’s 70% appears in a 2015 article about change programmes and in a 2022 interview about large-scale transformations in general, both with no source. McKinsey’s own survey of digital transformations gives a different figure (see below).
  • It is one result from 2020, not a constant. Repeats say research “consistently” shows it. In 2026, three BCG authors gave “around 70%” for all corporate transformations, with no source.
  • It is now applied to AI. Vendor articles say “70% of enterprise AI transformations fail”. No source in the chain measured AI transformations.

What other sources found

McKinsey, which also sells transformation consulting, asked about digital transformations in an online survey from 16 to 26 January 2018. Of 1,793 participants, 1,521 had been part of a digital transformation in the past five years. 16% said their organization’s digital transformation “successfully improved performance and also equipped them to sustain changes in the long term”. Another 7% said performance improved but the gains did not last. This is what respondents said. McKinsey counted a transformation as a success only if respondents rated it very or completely successful at both improving performance and sustaining the gains. McKinsey’s earlier surveys put the success rate of transformations in general at 20% to 26%.

This check found no source that measured how often AI transformations fail. The nearest figure is in McKinsey’s 2025 survey on AI: about 6% of organizations credited AI with 5% or more of their operating profit. That is what respondents said about profit, not a failure rate.

BCG’s 2020 article is worth citing for its split of digital transformations into 30%, 44% and 26%, as rated by executives. It is not a source for how often AI transformations, or change programmes in general, fail.

What to cite instead

In a 2020 article, Boston Consulting Group, which sells transformation consulting, drew on its work with 70 client companies and a survey of 825 senior executives, who rated their companies’ digital transformations. By BCG’s measure, 30% met or exceeded their target value and produced lasting change, 44% created some value but missed their targets, and 26% created less than half of their target value. No source has measured how often AI transformations fail.

Sources

  1. Forth, Reichert, de Laubier and Chakraborty (29 October 2020). Flipping the Odds of Digital Transformation Success. Boston Consulting Group. bcg.com
  2. Beer and Nohria (May–June 2000). Cracking the Code of Change. Harvard Business Review. hbr.org
  3. Ewenstein, Smith and Sologar (July 2015). Changing change management. McKinsey & Company. mckinsey.com
  4. Hughes (2011). Do 70 per cent of all organizational change initiatives really fail? Journal of Change Management 11(4), 451–464. Peer-reviewed. doi.org
  5. de la Boutetière, Montagner and Reich (October 2018). Unlocking success in digital transformations. McKinsey Global Survey. mckinsey.com
  6. Garcia (29 March 2022). Common pitfalls in transformations: A conversation with Jon Garcia. McKinsey & Company. mckinsey.com
  7. Dhar, Ellmer and Jameson (19 May 2026). We found the real reason 70% of transformations fail. Fortune. fortune.com
  8. McKinsey & Company (2025). The State of AI: Global Survey 2025. McKinsey Global Survey, published 5 November 2025. What this study did and found