Most organizations know how to run a successful pilot. 

A focused team, a contained scope, executive attention, and enough resources to make something work in a controlled environment. 

The harder problem that so far has defeated countless transformation programs across industries and geographies is what happens next. 

How do you take something that worked in isolation and make it work everywhere? 

This is of the most persistent challenges in organizational change. And it is exactly what the Global Lighthouse Network was built to study.

Launched in 2018 by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with McKinsey & Company, the Global Lighthouse Network identifies and connects organizations that have successfully scaled advanced technologies across their full operations , beyond pilots, and produced measurable results in doing so. 

While its focus is manufacturing, its insights speak directly to any leader overseeing large-scale transformation. The network functions as a peer-learning community,, and  member organizations share what actually worked, creating a growing body of real-world evidence about how transformation succeeds in practice.

The term "lighthouse" is intentional. These are organizations that have moved far enough ahead to show others a credible path forward.

Earning that designation is demanding. The WEF applies a rigorous assessment, and the threshold is high by design. Organizations must demonstrate that advanced technologies have been deployed across full operations and that this has produced verifiable improvements in productivity, sustainability, agility, or workforce capability. 

Two designations exist: one for organizations that have transformed their core operations, and a more advanced one for those who have extended that transformation across their entire value chain, from suppliers to customers. The second is significantly harder to achieve and represents a fundamentally different level of organizational maturity.

What makes this relevant beyond manufacturing is the underlying question the assessment asks: has change actually happened at scale, or have you just proven it can?

The network launched with 16 member organizations. It now includes more than 150 across 30 countries and multiple industries. That growth reflects a genuine global appetite for credible proof points, evidence that transformation is indeed achievable. In an environment saturated with frameworks, methodologies, and vendor promises, the GLN's value is precisely that it deals in outcomes.

For business leaders, the GLN offers a mirror. The patterns it has documented, why some organizations scale new capabilities successfully while others remain permanently stuck in pilot mode, are patterns that appear in technology adoption, organizational restructuring, and strategic change programs across every sector.

The consistent finding is that successful transformation is a question of operational discipline, leadership commitment, and the willingness to measure honestly. 

Organizations that achieve transformation at scale set clear outcome targets, build capability rather than just deploy tools, and treat failure in pilots as information rather than embarrassment.

The Global Lighthouse Network has, over six years, built one of the most substantive bodies of evidence available on what large-scale organizational transformation actually requires. For any leader asking why their organization keeps generating promising pilots that go nowhere, it is worth paying attention to what the Lighthouses have learned.

Visit https://initiatives.weforum.org/global-lighthouse-network/home to learn more about this strategic initiative.