Why Every Business Is Now a Tech Business

The truth about transformation

I've been thinking a lot lately about what separates companies that successfully transform from those that don't. Not the buzzword kind of transformation where you hire some consultants, rebrand your website, and call it a day. I mean the real, existential kind — where you fundamentally rethink what business you're actually in.

This is what fascinated me about my conversation with Johan Skarborg, founder of Academic Work (now part of Akind Group). Twenty-five years ago, he started a recruiting company when he was still a law student. Today, he's running what he describes as "a tech company that happens to be in the recruitment business."

That shift didn't happen overnight. It took seven years of building — often with unclear ROI, sometimes with painful setbacks, and always with the lingering question: is someone in a garage somewhere building this better, faster, and more elegantly than we are?

But here's the thing that struck me most: Johan didn't make this transformation because it was trendy. He made it because he realized that the fundamental job of a recruiting company isn't just "finding people" — it's predicting future work performance.

"If you ask recruiting companies what's at the core of what they do, very few would say it's predicting future work performance," Johan told me. "They'd say 'we help clients find people.' But what's your expertise really? What do you bring to the table?"

That realization — that they weren't just in the business of finding candidates, but in the business of prediction — changed everything. Because once you see prediction as your core value, data becomes your primary asset. And once data is your primary asset, you're no longer a service business. You're a tech business.

The 7-year journey no one talks about

Here's what I love about Johan's story: he's honest about how damn hard this transformation was.

For seven years, they've been building a technical platform from the ground up. Not buying off-the-shelf solutions, not outsourcing development — building it themselves with a team of 30 developers. Why? Because they realized that if they wanted to move fast in the future, they needed full control over their data and systems today.

"We started long before people were talking about AI," Johan explained. "We structured our data and built a tech, data, and process platform with essentially just a few theses: whatever we build now, we must be able to change quickly; and we must have full control over the data to do everything we want in the future with AI."

What fascinates me is that this isn't the part of digital transformation stories we usually hear. We hear about the results, the breakthrough moment, the hockey stick growth curve. We rarely hear about the years of building with unclear ROI, the organizational friction, the constant doubt.

Johan admitted he went to his board six years ago and said, "We need to go in this direction. I don't know how long it will take or how much it will cost." They could have spent a year analyzing and planning, but instead, they just jumped in.

"It was more expensive and took longer than expected," he confessed. "But it ended up much better than I thought."

This is the messy middle that most transformation stories edit out. The part where you're spending money without clear returns. The part where your existing systems and ways of working are deeply entrenched. The part where you realize you're not even a good technology buyer yet, let alone a technology builder.

Structure vs. culture: a false dichotomy

One of the most interesting parts of our conversation was Johan's take on the tension between structure and culture. As someone who's spent years in strategy consulting, I've seen this play out countless times: companies with strong cultures resist structure because they fear it will kill what makes them special.

But Johan sees these as complementary, not opposing forces.

"We typically think of it as two axes," he explained. "When you're a startup, you're high on culture and low on structure. Then as you grow, you bring in people who can build structure, but you sometimes lose a bit of the culture. Our ambition is to be in the upper right corner — high on both culture and structure."

Wait, that can't be right... can it?

Actually, it can. What Johan made me realize is that most people confuse structure with bureaucracy. Structure isn't about rigid processes and layers of approval. It's about clarity — making it crystal clear what we're trying to achieve and how we'll get there.

"Leadership for me is very much about clarity and energy," Johan said. "As employees, we all want clarity about where we're headed. But we also want energy. If we succeed with these two things, we get engaged employees."

I've been thinking about this framework a lot since our conversation. Clarity without energy leads to disengagement. Energy without clarity leads to chaos. But when you have both? That's when the magic happens.

The AI revolution isn't what you think

When we turned to the topic of AI, I was struck by how much Johan's thinking aligned with my own experiences. The companies that are approaching AI as primarily a technology project are missing the point entirely.

"Our branch — recruitment and staffing — where essentially our only capability is our people... that's about to change," Johan explained. "It's still people who are central, absolutely. But just like in most other industries, if you don't combine a human with technology and AI, you'll be outrun."

The implications are profound. For decades, the recruitment industry has had few barriers to entry. Anyone could start a recruitment company with minimal investment. But now? Size matters. Data matters. Technology infrastructure matters.

"We probably recruit the most people in Sweden among top companies," Johan said. "If we have data from all those processes that helps our customers get better decision support for recruitments, and we can increase the validity in recruitments because we have half a million people applying for jobs with us every year... suddenly size matters."

But here's where it gets really interesting. Johan believes the real transformation in his industry won't be about eliminating the human element — it will be about amplifying it.

"I personally think our industry will be really exciting from that perspective," he said. "We're coming from a relationship industry, and it's only going to become more so because we're going to eliminate so much of what isn't relationships. You'll be able to put much more energy into that, because everything else will be taken care of."

That's a profound insight, and one I think applies far beyond recruiting. The value of AI isn't in replacing humans — it's in freeing them to focus on the uniquely human aspects of their work.

The leadership challenge no one's prepared for

What struck me most about our conversation was how unprepared most leaders are for this new reality. When I asked Johan about how his leadership has evolved over 25 years, he was refreshingly honest:

"I don't know if I'm a good leader, actually. But I think I've been able to recruit good leaders, and I've been able to step away and not ruin things for them."

There's a humility there that I find increasingly valuable in a world where the pace of change keeps accelerating. The old model of leadership — where the leader knows best because they've done it before — is rapidly becoming obsolete.

Johan told me about his tech team challenging long-established processes. "They ask, 'but why?' And we need to do that much more," he said.

In a world where the rules are constantly being rewritten, the most valuable leadership quality may well be openness — the willingness to question, explore, and adapt.

"If you ask me in five years, I'll have data to show you which roles need high levels of openness," Johan said.

I suspect the data will show that virtually all leadership roles in the AI era will require higher levels of openness than we've traditionally selected for. The ability to embrace change, to question assumptions, to think along new lines — these traits, which have always been valuable, will soon become essential.

The lingering question

As our conversation wound down, I found myself reflecting on a question that hasn't left my mind since: What business are you really in?

Johan transformed his company when he realized they weren't just in the business of finding people — they were in the business of predicting future work performance. That insight changed everything.

So what about your company? What if the service you provide isn't really your core value? What if there's a deeper insight about what your customers truly need that could completely transform how you operate?

For most service businesses, the answer will probably involve data and prediction in some form. Whether you're in consulting, legal services, healthcare, education, or any other knowledge-based industry, your value increasingly lies in your ability to predict outcomes.

And once prediction becomes your core value, you're no longer just a service business. You're a tech business.

The companies that recognize this shift early — and invest accordingly — will thrive. Those that don't may find themselves wondering how their industry changed so quickly around them.

As Johan put it: "When internet came and there was hype around it, I built a recruitment and staffing company. When my kids asked me what I did when the internet came, I didn't have a good answer. I missed that train. Now I'm so damn happy to be on the AI train. Because that's a train you don't want to miss."

If you found this valuable, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. And if you haven't read my book, "The Execution Revolution," it's available wherever books are sold. It's becoming more relevant with each passing week as we navigate these transformative times.