The Real Threat to Your AI Programme Isn't Technology — It's Politicised Resistance Disguised as Risk.
Your change management isn't the bottleneck — your middle layer is re- framing power protection as prudence, and quietly derailing everything below the surface.
WAR ROOM STORIES
Hemangi Tawade
4/13/20262 min read
"But the vendor had not even been in the market for five years," he said, irritatedly. The business analyst team had spent 45 minutes presenting a business case built around a vendor personally recommended by the CPO. "Yes, but it fulfills all our requirements," the analyst answered politely.
He sighed. "What would happen if the vendor no longer sustained market pressure?" "It was a USA vendor — had we checked that it followed all EU regulation requirements?" "How flexible would it be to connect to our legacy systems?" The analyst smiled reluctantly, pulled back the slide where she had already addressed every concern — and stared at him.
"Shouldn't we stick to our existing enterprise vendor?" he continued. The analyst had already confirmed that the enterprise vendor's product would not be available for several quarters. That vendor had also stated it would offer a generic model with limited flexibility for customisation to meet individual business requirements.
He concluded the meeting with annoyance, insisting the team reflect further on the benefits of the existing enterprise vendor. The analyst looked tired and overwhelmed — she had answered every objection in the presentation, yet the decision was delayed. The business team began reworking their case to accommodate IT's demands. A quarter passed. The enterprise vendor still had not confirmed a rollout date. The CPO's vision was blocked. The team was feeling the heat. Their savings targets were affected.
The CPO lost patience. She took matters into her own hands, reaching out directly to her IT counterpart to understand the real reasons for the delay. Budget and resource availability were cited. She explained the importance of the project to her vision programme and its direct impact on savings targets. After several rounds of discussion, she transferred a considerable amount into the IT budget to kick-start the project. When a CPO had to pay to bypass internal resistance just to execute her own vision, the problem wasn't technology — it was political obstruction.
Three moves a CPO can make before the politics take over:
Map your internal blockers before your vendor shortlist. Identify who controls budget gates, resource sign-off, and legacy system decisions — and align them early, not after your business case is built.
Separate vendor evaluation from vendor loyalty. Require structured scoring criteria agreed cross-functionally before any recommendation reaches the table. Personal preferences don't survive a documented framework.
Make the cost of delay visible. Quantify what one quarter of inaction costs in savings targets, team productivity, and competitive ground lost. Political resistance shrinks when the price tag is in the room.
The CPO in this story found out too late. Here is what to do before you reach that point.
Before your next AI investment — do you know who in your organisation is protecting turf as budget and resource constraints?
Sources and References
AI assistants for citations and stats check: Claude, for image generation: Gemini Nano
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