Lessons in transformation -- telcos can learn from other industries' mistakes

Harvard Business Review (HBR) has published a report on their study of over 1,400 large IT projects, across several sectors which found that one in six turn out to be money pits, with cost overruns of 200% and schedule overruns of 70%.

Their data suggests that at least one established company will fail in the next few years because of an out of control IT project. If that sounds like doom mongering the publication points to examples – Kmart, for instance, once a household name, now no more; Hershey’s, almost a decade ago, unable to deliver $100 million worth of candy just before Halloween; Levi Strauss forced to take a charge against earnings of $192.5 million in 2008 and all because of IT projects going off the rails. Many failed projects cost the jobs of senior managers, some cost entire economies many hundreds of millions of dollars.