Why Digitalisation Has Not Delivered Efficiency or Predictability in Infrastructure, Energy, and Utilities

By Pasi Joensuu

For more than twenty years we have repeated a simple belief: If we buy better tools, our projects will run smoother.

If we adopt new platforms, our data quality will improve. If we digitalise enough, productivity will finally rise.

But when we look at the evidence, the story unravels.

Across infrastructure, energy, and utilities, organisations have invested heavily in digital solutions. Yet leading research institutions consistently report that these investments have not
delivered the gains we expected. McKinsey Global Institute shows that construction productivity has increased at roughly one percent per year for two decades.

This stagnation has continued throughout the years when the industry adopted BIM, cloud platforms, detailed 3D models, drones, sensors, and sophisticated project management systems.

Gartner and FMI add another dimension. A large share of digital transformation programmes fail to deliver their intended value, not because the technology lacks capability, but because organisations struggle to absorb and integrate the change.

When we examine project performance, the picture becomes even clearer. Studies from McKinsey, the World Economic Forum, and Oxford Saïd Business School all point to the same conclusion: Large capital projects continue to exceed budgets and schedules by substantial margins. Cost overruns of 20 to 45 percent and delays of 30 to 70 percent remain common across sectors and regions. These are not outliers. They are part of a stable, long running pattern.

Public sector oversight bodies reach similar findings. The IMF, the European Court of Auditors, and several national audit offices regularly highlight weaknesses in governance information management, and process maturity. Estimates suggest that global construction related inefficiencies exceed one trillion euros each year. Much of this loss stems from rework, fragmented communication, inconsistent data, and decision making that is not aligned across teams.

It is easy to blame the tools when digitalisation does not deliver. But the tools are rarely the issue.

The deeper problem is that digitalisation introduces complexity faster than
organisations can stabilise it. A new system creates new expectations. Better data requires
better processes. Transparency demands clarity in roles, responsibilities, and workflows. If
these foundations are weak, digital tools do not solve the problem. They simply expose it.

The World Economic Forum has captured this dynamic clearly. Adoption rates for digital tools are high, but value capture remains low because the operational environment around the tools is not mature enough to support them.

Many organisations believe they have digitalised, when in practice they have only added more systems on top of inconsistent ways of working.

This is why the gap between investment and outcome continues to widen. Companies spend more, yet the underlying challenges remain unchanged. Predictability does not improve. Efficiency does not meaningfully rise. The research is remarkably consistent across sources. Technology alone cannot fix fragmented processes or unclear decision making.

Improvements in performance depend on the organisation’s ability to manage data, structure workflows, and maintain stable, repeatable ways of operating.

As infrastructure, energy, and utilities move into their next phase of digital transformation, this distinction becomes more important than ever.

The central question is no longer which tools to adopt. It is whether the organisation has the maturity to use them in a way that reduces uncertainty instead of amplifying it.

Digitalisation still holds enormous potential. But its success depends on how people work, how decisions are made, and how information flows through a project. Until that foundation is strengthened, we will continue to see the same pattern: high expectations, heavy investment, and results that continue to fall short.

What comes next?

If technology is not the root problem, the solution must lie elsewhere.

In the next article, “How Digitalisation Can Finally Deliver the Results We Expected,” we shift from diagnosis to direction and examine what changes when digitalisation starts with organisational maturity instead of tools – and how clarity in data, processes, and decision making can finally turn investment into predictable results.

This article will be released shortly, and in the meantime please follow us on LinkedIn!

About the Author – Pasi Joensuu

Pasi Joensuu is an infrastructure digitalisation specialist with more than thirty years of experience spanning surveying, construction technology, and large scale project delivery. He has worked with owners, contractors, and technology providers across Europe, South Asia, and the Middle East, helping organisations improve predictability through better use of data, clearer processes, and more transparent decision making.

His work focuses on understanding how digitalisation succeeds in practice and why it so often falls short of its potential. He is also the founder and CEO of DIMEA Consulting Ltd, a company focused on helping infrastructure organisations reduce uncertainty by improving data quality, clarifying processes, and strengthening operational decision making.