Three Key Steps in Driving Business Transformation

A systematic transformation takes the step-wise scenario and going from decision right to design attitude. 

The speed of change is accelerated, the large-scale transformation initiatives have become a fact of life at major corporations, and their success or failure often means the key difference between long-term success and underperformance. However, on a global scale, approximately 70% of the business or IT transformation has failed to meet business expectations, how to make such a transformation effort more systematically.





Identify key driving factors for business transformation: First, ask managers and leaders about the vision and business problems they are trying to solve, there needs to be a comprehensive audit of the business, to ferret out the problem areas. Once this is done, you can then begin to determine what modifications need to take place, whether it is adding new products or services, building the culture of innovation, or creating new groundbreaking business processes, or even, adopting proven market-changing business models. The key driving factors of any business transformation are 1) Automation and standardization practices 2) Organizational culture reinvention and 3) the transformation of data into relevant and timely information; or transform the computer systems and technical programs that are being used to take advantage of the latest digital trend, etc.

From decision attitude to design attitude: The genuine vision is to ensure the collective wisdom of the organization is capitalized upon, through collaborative analysis and future design teams. Make sure it's clear and unambiguous with a clear sense of purpose and where they want to be within a given timeframe. In most cases, business expectations were not articulated effectively in the first place. Genuine design leadership capability is essential and most of the projects have benefited from the use of business architecture and design teams; there is no room for accommodating an 'emperor’s clothes' environment anymore. Business transformation needs to be carried out within the company's system and apply design principles accordingly.

Grooming talent with transformational skills: You cannot transform the organization without considering the human factors thoughtfully, it appears as the biggest area of neglect and the major reason why there is a lack of overall improvement in the business. Transformational change involves a complete end-to-end change, it requires commitment from the senior leadership which is often lacking. The issue is that it is becoming another “tick in the box” for many organizations. There are perhaps a number of people usually internal to the business appointed by an organization to work with an external/internal change manager and act as the "voice of the business", and be the conduit into the business to help with communication, process, and organizational changes. However, people, who are leading or driving transformational changes, are often not skilled enough or too much focus on ‘tunnel vision’ in driving the change.
- Board members are forced to keep out of management issues and too many executive managers have one eye on the short-term results and the other on the door.
-Finance people are judged on numbers so you can't really blame them for taking that approach.
-IT professionals think change as technical challenges instead of business transformations.
-HR personnel still treats people as the human resource to the plugin, not as human capital to invest in.
-Risk management only focuses on controlling risks, without grasping the potential growth opportunities in changes and transformations.

A systematic transformation takes the step-wise transformation scenario, it is about leaders identifying their vision, strategy and approaching transformation from decision right to design attitude, and managers/employees with change mindset and transformational skills can execute those strategies with established deliverable and metrics to monitor and measure the success of the transformation.

Posted in: Change Management,Decision Making,IT Transformation