Only 48% of Digital Initiatives Hit their Targets.
Stack the Odds Before you Start
Before you commit budget to a modernization pilot, run it through five pass/fail checks the CFO will accept. This free Red/Yellow/Green scorecard tells you, in one page, whether your pilot will produce momentum or just motion. Built for banks, from the research behind The Cost of Standing Still.
Get the free scorecard
Why a ScoreCard, Not a Leap of Faith
2 of 3 large technology programs exceed budget, schedule, or benefits (McKinsey)
25–40% overrun budget or schedule by more than 50% (McKinsey)
48% — only this share of digital initiatives meet or exceed business targets (Gartner 2026 CIO Survey)
4 of 33 proof-of-concepts ever reach production (IDC)
Score it before you fund it
The cost of a bad first pilot is the momentum you lose and the board confidence you spend.
Five minutes with this scorecard is the cheapest risk reduction in the entire program.
This scorecard is a companion to The Cost of Standing Still, Devsu's research ebook on what legacy systems really cost US financial institutions in 2026. Read the Full Research Ebook
The Most Important Decision in Any Modernization Program is The First Pilot
Pick well, and the whole program proceeds on the strength of demonstrated outcomes. Pick badly, and it either fails outright or — more commonly — succeeds on the wrong dimension and produces no momentum for the broader effort. The market gives you every reason to be disciplined: most large programs overrun, and most proofs-of-concept never reach production.
A bounded 90-day pilot is the antidote — small enough to fund without a board program, long enough to prove the velocity differential, structured so "did it work?" has an honest answer.
This scorecard is the gate you run a candidate pilot through before you commit a dollar.
The FIVE pass/fail criteria
Critical-not-symbolic, bounded scope, honest dependencies, time-boxed at 90–180 days, and a CFO-accepted success metric, each with Red/Green anchors to score against.
A clear funding rule
Fundable only when all five are green; any red is a disqualifier.
The 90-day shape
The three-phase structure (discovery/implementation/validation) and the two deliverables you should expect at day 90.
Seven vendor questions
The ones that separate real modernization partners from the rest (they apply to Devsu the same as anyone else).
About Devsu
Devsu is an AI-native engineering and system-intelligence partner for US financial institutions. We help credit unions modernize the member experience around the existing core — bounded, governed, and built so your team owns the outcome. No rip-and-replace, no permanent vendor dependency. A decade of engineering excellence, teams across the Americas, trusted by industry leaders.
Trusted by Industry Leaders
Benchmarks: Gartner Forecast: Enterprise IT Spending for Banking & Investment Services, Worldwide (Q4 2025) and IT-budget allocation benchmarks; McKinsey Unlocking value from technology in banking and Breaking technical debt's vicious cycle; Accenture 2026 banking technology research; IBM Security Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025. Figures are directional, for internal planning and board discussion.
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