April 16, 2025
By: Caurie Putnam
Global digital transformation spending reached $2.5 trillion in 2024 and is on pace to reach $3.9 trillion by 2027, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC), which points to investments in artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (Gen-AI) pushing investments.
How can small business owners manage this rapid pace of digital transformation? We talked to three local leaders in Rochester’s data and IT space to find out.
John Loury
“First, take a breath — you’re not alone,” said John C.S. Loury, president of Rochester-based Cause + Effect Strategy, to small-business owners. “Companies of all sizes are trying to deal with the challenges related to the pace of digital transformation.”
Loury, whose company is a provider of data and analytics consulting services, stresses that this pace and rapid introduction of Gen-AI into the conversation has many business owners and leaders of all sizes anxious and feeling like they’re behind or not doing enough to modernize or transform their businesses.
“After taking a breath, the first step is to develop a plan or strategy for your business that focuses on the different functional areas and using the lenses of people, process and technology,” he said, explaining that it’s helpful to look at the functional units of your business, like marketing and operations, through those three lenses. “Once you’ve done that, you’re able to extract where you see some gaps and that’s where we want to focus first.”
This honest assessment of where your business is from a digital maturity perspective and breaking the transformation down into small, more easily digestible pieces is key to knowing where to go.
“Then, the third piece is to seek out local partners who can help you, guide you or add to your knowledge base,” Loury said. “You don’t need to work with a huge consulting firm to bring up your knowledge base when it comes to some of these different tools, technologies or processes. There are local companies that can help and especially upskill your team.”
Finally, Loury says business owners need to tactically choose the area to focus on the most, which can sometimes seem daunting to small businesses.
“Bigger budgets don’t guarantee greater success. Just because you’re not a publicly traded company and you don’t have millions of dollars to be able to dedicate to digital transformation does not mean that you can’t be extremely successful.”
Being small and agile can work in a business’s favor when it comes to changing processes and implementing new technologies.
“Really focus on making incremental changes that positively impact your business and not chasing trends or buzz terms,” Loury said. “Identify opportunities to reduce infrastructure with cloud-based tools and look for opportunities around automation. If you’re a smaller team the idea of adopting tools and technologies that can help make you more efficient and get more done makes you seem like a bigger team.”