Why Value Realization Fails (and It’s Not What You Think)

Value doesn’t fail in the spreadsheet; it fails in the operating model.

I’ve tried to make value management stick in places that weren’t designed for it. Value metrics, value stream mapping, benefit reviews. On paper, it all made sense and looked disciplined. The reality was different: strategy lived in slides, delivery lived in sprints, and value had nowhere to live. Teams stayed busy, status went green, and the conversation with leadership never moved beyond the investment case.

I’ve watched capable people — good leaders — try to solve this. They weren’t careless; they were trapped in systems that reward motion over meaning. And when a system isn’t built for value, even the best effort fragments.

The evidence isn’t hard to find. Bain & Company’s 2024 survey found that only about 12% of business transformations achieve their original ambitions. (Bain & Company, April 2024) Meanwhile, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) reported that 74% of companies still struggle to scale real value from AI-driven initiatives. (BCG, October 2024) Both point to the same issue: we keep launching large-scale programs, but business value keeps slipping away.

You can see it in the field as well. Many enterprise programs still run over budget and deliver far less benefit than projected. For example, SaaS companies with net revenue retention below 100% are in a value deficit (ChartMogul SaaS Retention Report). Even Google Cloud built a dedicated customer-value platform when it realized renewals depended less on features than on proof (Google Cloud Case Study).

Everyone talks about ROI, but ROI was never designed to explain progress; it was designed to measure financial efficiency. According to Investopedia, ROI “measures how much profit (or loss) was generated relative to an investment’s cost.” (Investopedia: Guide to Calculating ROI) By contrast, frameworks like Gartner’s define business value as “the realized contribution of an initiative to enterprise strategy and goals,” which extends far beyond investment efficiency. (Gartner: Business Value of IT) In short: **ROI measures efficiency; value measures alignment.**

None of this points to neglect. It points to design. Value fails quietly when the operating model doesn’t know where to hold it. Many organizations I’ve worked with stop at the ribbon-cutting ceremony when the real milestone is embedding value as a continuous rhythm. A recent operating model study showed that the difference between companies that capture value and those that don’t isn’t the investment — it’s how they anchor benefit ownership, decision rights, and execution cadence. (KPMG – The Intelligent Tech Enterprise, 2025)

No clear home for value. Finance tracks cost, IT tracks delivery, and strategy tracks ambition. No one owns the connection.
Old reflexes. Decades of “on time and on budget” taught leaders to equate completion with success.
Fuzzy strategy. When goals are too vague, measurement becomes theater.
Politics and silos. Local wins get defended even as enterprise value leaks away.

I’ve seen both sides. In one global rollout, we hit every milestone and still stalled because “what good looks like” never left the deck. In another, we paused three weeks before kickoff to agree on two CFO-visible indicators and one frontline proof. The difference was immediate: fewer escalations, faster decisions, and benefits that appeared where leadership already looked.

But what if the organization simply isn’t ready — no appetite for shared metrics, no rhythm for outcomes, no executive space for value management? It happens more often than people admit. In those cases, one VP or program lead can’t change the system overnight. What they can do is prove it works. Start small, show evidence, and let clarity do the persuading. One team measuring outcomes honestly will teach faster than a hundred slide decks.

I’ve learned that influence starts with proof of value — a working model others can see. Build a rhythm around one measurable outcome that matters to the business, connect it to a number the CFO already tracks, and run short, open value reviews that make the evidence visible. When leaders see the difference, belief follows. You can’t reform an unready organization, but you can show it what ready looks like.

If you want a quick mirror, ask five questions — no slides required:

Are our success stories about outcomes or outputs?
Can we trace today’s initiatives to a board-level strategic objective?
Who owns value after go-live — by name — and what do they report, when, and to whom?
What two indicators would convince a skeptic that benefits are real within one quarter?
If we stopped this program tomorrow, what measurable loss would the business feel?

These aren’t theoretical questions. They’re mirrors. And even mature organizations hesitate before answering them.

I don’t think value management is too abstract; I think it’s underpowered. Most enterprises never gave it a system of decision rights, cadence, and accountability. When those exist, value doesn’t need a campaign — it shows up where leaders already look.

I’ve led and lost these battles. I’ve also seen them won when belief, measurement, and rhythm finally lined up. The irony is that we keep chasing ROI dashboards to prove what only value systems can deliver. ROI counts the past; value determines the future.

In the next pieces, I’ll unpack what that means in practice. Part II looks beneath the surface — why operating models, incentives, and culture quietly kill value long before metrics do. Part III moves into design — what it takes to build an organization that can hold value as part of its rhythm, not as a quarterly event. And Part IV closes the loop — how value realization becomes ordinary enough to stop being called transformation.

Every company measures something. The ones that endure measure meaning — and make someone accountable for it.