The telegraph killed Western Union’s monopoly. Electrification bankrupted 3,000 manufacturers. The internet destroyed Blockbuster, Borders, and Kodak. Enterprise software cost Hershey $150M in a single quarter. Now AI.
Five technology revolutions. One consistent finding: the technology never killed the company. The gap between the technology and the organization did. Every. Single. Time.
The companies that survived every technology revolution restructured the organization before they scaled the technology. The rest became case studies. Which one are you?
Dimension | Hershey, 1999 | Hershey, 2002 |
|---|---|---|
Implementation Approach | Big bang — full SAP go-live in one shot | Phased rollout with organizational readiness gates |
Workforce Readiness | Minimal training, no change management | Structured adoption program across every function |
Business Impact | $150M in lost sales. Couldn't ship Halloween orders. | 20% under budget. 99.96% inventory accuracy. |
Market Reaction | Stock dropped 8% in a single day | Stock recovered. Became a case study in getting it right. |
$95% of companies deploying AI are running the 1999 playbook.
112M invested both times. Same technology. Same scale. Same company. The variable that changed was organizational readiness.





