A new approach to business transformation
From intelligent technologies to geopolitical tensions, the pace of change and uncertainty in the world is accelerating. How people live their lives has shifted. As customers, our digital, hyper-networked lives have created expectations for businesses to pre-empt our every wish. Competition to cut through the noise to reach customers continues to be the ultimate prize, meaning organisations must forever look ahead and continuously evolve.
To not transform is to risk irrelevancy. We know that traditional approaches to business transformation – often one significant programme delivered over many years with most benefits arriving towards the end – generally result in failure.
We believe this standard approach to transformation, applied uniformly, is too blunt a response to the challenges presented by the fast-paced change demanded today. With continued change now the norm, organisations must create a bespoke transformation approach that fits their shifting needs.
The thing about change is that it's contextual. This means there is no one way to transform – every organisation must choose the right approach for them, based on their strategy, culture and priorities. When working with transformation or change directors, we focus on five principles to guide a successful transformation:
Define your future and make it compelling, engaging and inspiring
Create the new reality, take the first steps to build confidence in delivery
Respond rapidly and adjust your approach to make decisions quickly
Empower networked leadership to accelerate the pace of change
Embed the transformation
to create an enduring capability
What's most important to you? Explore the scenarios below and begin to design your transformation.
You'll need to have a clear view of what you want to deliver and remain flexible and adjust delivery as you go. Leadership will have a significant role in your success. You'll need them to focus on ensuring your transformation is embedded and continues to land across all areas of your business.
You need your people to buy in to the transformation to go for every last unit of benefit – so they must be clear on why you are changing and what you are aiming for.
Stability, consistency and clarity will be key to ensuring your delivery teams continue to deliver benefit.
Investing time in development and testing, continually reviewing and adjusting your requirements helps ensure you’ve comprehensively checked your design.
You’ll need support from leaders and managers at every level to ensure you don’t create new risks as you go. Investing in building transformation capability throughout your organisation makes risk reduction a natural way of working.
You need to have an outline of your future, then think big and scale fast. Consider using Scaled Agile techniques to start delivering real business value immediately.
You will need a cadre of visionary leaders that inspire action fast, and get everyone pulling in the same direction throughout the transformation.
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To find out more about how we can help you with transformation, get in touch with one of our experts today.
