11.3 A Proven Path to the Technology Podium

Vonn—known for fast, powerful starts out of the gate—described her state of mind in the gate as automatized, i.e., calm and in the moment. In those brief moments Vonn could …

Being in the moment didn’t just happen. It was the result of hours of brutal gym work, a careful course analysis, prepping the right skis, and visualizing the course “a thousand times in my head.” Vonn leveraged technology, but only as an enabler. Tech was a small but vital part of her holistic preparation, not the driver of her strategy.

Many companies slip up, letting tech take over. Thibault Boldin, Heineken’s Chief Transformation Officer, commented on this lapse, saying, “most companies manage transformation as a tech project.” One result: Digital transformations suffer a huge failure rate—north of 70% according to McKinsey.

Heineken’s European operations redesign succeeded because Boldin stayed disciplined. He trusted a holistic process to ensure tech-enabled core goals: Harmonizing and leveraging network operations, simplifying product and packaging complexity, and reducing Heineken’s carbon footprint. Consider how his “heads, hearts, and hands” approach enabled strategy.

• Heads: Address the questions in people’s heads, i.e., the whys driving the change.

• Hearts: Engage people in the transformation and incorporate their feedback.

• Hands: Stay focused on capabilities, both the ones you are building and the ones your people possess so they can support the end processes.

You might think this approach constrained the tech tools Heineken used. It didn’t. Heineken employed all of today’s hot tech—AI, big data, digital twins, and robotics—to get to targeted outcomes. Ultimately, Heineken went from 25 planning teams to one, reduced bottle types and packaging 50%, and cut carbon emissions 24% (compared to 2018).

Vonn was a tech enthusiast. She relied on tech to give her an edge in training—in the gym, on the slope, and in her after-action analyses—during races, and ultimately to rebuild the knee that forced her retirement. She knew, however, that tech couldn’t make up for a lack of preparation, which she grounded in the 3Ps.

• People. The first P started with Vonn. Per Lunstam, Red Bull’s Director of Athlete Performance, described Vonn as relentless, “looking behind every door, every rock” for ways to go faster. He described her as “so in tune with her equipment, with her own body, with preparation.”

  Vonn’s team prepared like she did. She lauded Magic Heinzi who “tuned her skis for hours on end” and Lindsay Winninger who “helped me get back from all my injuries.” Her point: “The team is everything.” Each team member leveraged tech to enhance Vonn’s preparation.

• Process. Vonn lived the Vonn way—“on the slopes and off.” Employing tech to gain an edge in every aspect of preparation was part of the Vonn way.

• Performance Measurement. Consider this Vonnism: “to get to the next level, what is there I can change?” Vonn drove change via measurement, using the latest tech the Red Bull High Performance Center offered or going old school, taking notes on the feel of her skis. She was the rare skier who watched film of her crashes, always looking for a way to improve.

The bottom line: Vonn got tech right by making the 3Ps part of the Vonn way.

To improve the performance of the Xbox production process, Microsoft turned to digital transformation. To gain engineers’ buy-in, Jerry Knoben, Corporate VP of Manufacturing and Supply Chain, turned to the 3Ps.

• Process & Performance Measurement. Stage 1 involved building control towers to create visibility into how key processes really worked. A year of data collection and discovery led to dashboards that displayed, “everything we cared about” from suppliers to shipping. Here’s the key: The team repeatedly asked, “What’s the vital data to hit our key KPIs?”

• People. Stages 2 and 3 built out predictive analytic and machine learning capabilities. Here’s the key: As the AI system’s training progressed, it shared alerts. For example, “Yesterday, when this occurred, you did this. Maybe you should do the same.” Over time, the AI earned the engineers’ trust. They turned routine quality problems over to AI so they could focus on “bigger” things—a big deal in a setting where “you get yelled at for cost problems but fired for bad quality.”

Staying focused on the 3Ps helps you build momentum in the technology arms race.

From a young age, Vonn was fast. She attacked the fall line, the straightest route to the finish, and aggressively leaned into her turns. Two realizations transformed Vonn’s love of speed into a deliberate, disciplined quest for speed.

1. Losing Didn’t Feel Good. Vonn discovered that “if I wasn’t winning, I didn’t like the feeling.” Vonn decided to figure out how to avoid that feeling in the future.

2. She Could Find a Way. As she watched US Ski Team rivals on the slopes, Vonn realized, “I couldn’t will anyone else to go slower … but I could find the ways to make myself faster.”

Vonn resolved to do “whatever I needed to, all in service of being fast.” And she did, targeting each investment to enhance her ability to go fast. She viewed risks the same way, saying, “taking risks became second nature—as long as the risks I took could make me faster.”

Walmart is equally capabilities driven. In the 1990s, Walmart relied on a technology-capabilities map to evaluate tech investments. Desired capabilities appeared across the top, potential technologies on the left. Tech that didn’t enable critical capabilities didn’t make the cut. Today, Walmart is putting tech to the test via its digital transformation. The goal: Leverage EDLP, enhance the customer experience, and enable faster omnichannel delivery. Consider how Walmart is investing to become a legitimate threat to Amazon’s online dominance.

• Walmart developed Walmart Global Tech to modernize its website, build a next-gen search engine, and create mobile apps.

• Walmart partnered with Microsoft to use the tech company’s AI, cloud, IoT, and machine learning solutions to enhance forecasting, product placement, and the shopping experience.

• Walmart leveraged its 4,600 stores to enable customers to buy online, pick up in store, a big deal as over 90% of US consumers live within 10 minutes of a Walmart store.

• Walmart launched Walmart+ and InHome to make home delivery attractive. Same-day deliveries can be made to over 93% of US addresses.

• Walmart invested in micro-fulfillment centers as well as Spark, a home delivery service, to make home delivery convenient. Ninety-five percent of orders can be picked in 12 minutes.

The result: Post pandemic, Walmart’s has doubled its share of US ecommerce sales. David Guggina, EVP Supply Chain Operations, argues that digitization has enabled the retailer to, “meet customers where they want to be met.” Amazon is now playing catch-up.

By linking technology—and everything else she did—to her quest for speed, Vonn made it easier to set priorities and avoid distractions. Her decision rule: “If something wasn’t going to bring me success on the slopes, then I ought not to be doing it.”

Many SC decision makers have yet to figure this out. They get distracted by technology detours (see Table 2) and stray from the technology-adoption fall line. Zara is an exception. In the early 2000s, Xan Salgado Badás, Head of IT, had a decision to make: Replace Zara’s existing (and quite old) DOS-based point-of-sales (POS) terminals with a modern POS platform, or not. Salgado and his team very deliberately weighed the pros and cons before sticking with the DOS-based system. Why, you ask? The old system worked, supporting exceptional store growth. More critically, the new POS platforms didn’t provide any new and needed capabilities.

You may think Zara is a tech laggard. That’s not the case. In the early 2010s, Zara, cracked the code for using RFID to better manage inventory. Having learned from others’ mistakes, Zara put the RFID chip inside the security tags it attached to each item, allowing for reuse. Zara could better find the items customers wanted and reduced by 90% the time needed to conduct a storewide inventory count. More frequent counts provided a more accurate view of fashion trends. Zara is now in the midst of an AI-enabled digital transformation, building out its omnichannel capabilities—and deliberately sticking to the tech fall line.

Seeking efficiency through tech was a part of Vonn’s routine. After each run, for example, Magic Heinzi asked, “Does it ski fast? Does it turn well? Do I like it? Do I not like it?” The goal: Make the small changes that make a difference in performance. Heinz did more than use the information to tune Vonn’s skis. He also took more substantive insights to the engineers at the Head factory, who tweaked the construction or design of Vonn’s ski.

Vonn also pursued radical innovation. Her switch to men’s skis typifies her willingness to do “whatever it took for me to be the best, even when it meant doing things differently.” Earlier in her career, she brought ultrahigh-speed, high-definition video to skiing. Her goal: Evaluate the interplay between her equipment and snow conditions. And in 2024, she became the first Alpine racer to ski on a titanium knee, a game changer that enabled her to become the oldest woman to reach a World Cup podium. Vonn never stopped leveraging tech to innovate. She always sought a “way to be better and faster.”

IKEA shares the same mindset, i.e., seek efficiencies while pursuing innovation. Check out the AI across IKEA’s fulfillment processes. AI algorithms enhance IKEA’s online media, automate warehousing and distribution, forecast demand and optimize inventory to get the right SKUs in stock in the store while minimizing overstocks, and streamline the checkout process. Efficiencies earned stack up, keeping IKEA in the retail race. BCG, for instance, estimates that AI-enablement delivers a 15% reduction in inventory costs and a 30% increase in service levels.

But IKEA is pushing its, and AI’s, limits to create an online shopping experience just as immersive and memorable as visiting one of its labyrinthine stores. Picture this. You snap a few photos, upload them to IKEA’s Kreativ app (launched in 2024) and voila, in a few brief moments, you get a 3D model of your room, i.e., a virtual showroom. Using LiDar, AI, and VR, Kreativ enables you to pick and place IKEA’s modern pieces in your own living space. You can play with options until you get just the right look and feel—and share them with friends to get their take. The result: Online sales reached 26% in 2024, and product returns dropped 20%.

Google, “Lindsey Vonn quotes.” You’ll find one that stands as a warning: “You have to push limits in order to find your limits.” Vonn spent her career trying to get as close as humanly possible to her limits. Sometimes she pushed too hard, and crashed—this despite hours and hours invested in testing her equipment, taking notes, and working with Magic Heinzi to make sure any needed fixes were made.

Vonn would argue, “I know the risks, I accept the risks, but I’m not afraid of the risks.” She would likewise acknowledge that pushing the limits was “possibly the biggest downfall in my career.” Injuries caused her to miss major portions of four World Cup seasons and forced her to retire in 2019. Of course, pushing the limits, combined with her personal grit and intense preparation, is what made Vonn arguably the greatest downhill skier ever.

Domino’s has pushed technology’s limits to enable you to order how you want, wherever you are (almost). The goal: Redefine convenience to dominate delivery. Consider your options:

1. AnyWare Ordering. You order via app, smart TV, voice assistant, social media, or your favorite wearable. And you can stay connected via real-time tracking and “Points for Pies.”

2. Carside Delivery. You order and pay online. When you arrive, you sign in and a Domino’s employee will deliver to your car in fewer than two minutes, or your next pizza is free.

3. Pinpoint Delivery. You pick the place, say a park bench or a beach, you open the app and drop a pin, and your pizza will be delivered to you, wherever you are (almost).

The result: Domino’s has passed Pizza Hut to become the largest, fastest-growing, and most profitable major pizza chain in the world—and 85% of orders are made digitally.

Here’s what’s remarkable: From launch, each innovation just works, seamlessly. And you’ve never heard about a Domino’s yard sale. Why not? According to Kelly Garcia, Domino’s Chief Technology Officer, Domino’s makes its tech stackable, like Legos—and a “fail-fast” culture with extensive testing done early identifies the ideas that will likely work, and those that won’t. Garcia notes that testing “takes the emotion out of it. We let the data speak.” As long as Domino’s doesn’t get out over its skis, you will likely see robots and autonomous delivery soon, two ideas Domino’s is testing today.