These days, the word "transformation" is thrown around a lot, but for different individuals and businesses it can have different meanings. Transformation now centers around the need to generate new demand in an environment of unparalleled change and industry turbulence— to unlock new markets, drive new innovation, deliver new efficiencies.
Business transformation is the method of improving an organization's business process to satisfy changing market demands. Organizations are undergoing business transformations to cope with their product markets ' changing needs. Eventually, market restructuring allows a company boost its quality by either increasing revenue or through operating expenses or both. It is the time to identify a radical vision which goes beyond incremental change— the chance to reconsider the meaning of your company and operating models. It involves strategic decisions affecting where you are going to grow, how your organization works, and what kinds of performance improvements you can expect.
1. Begin with a strategy- informed vision Leaders usually have a clearly articulated, well-understood business strategy for market change. Often the decisions of an organization— although tacitly recognized by senior management— are improperly converted into downstream choices of execution. The outcome? The value's dilution. A sound strategy acts as the foundation for a wide range of business-wide investment decisions, asset distributions, and standards of success. It helps shape an executable ambition for transformation— that is, the value that the transformation should bring. You should have a deep understanding of how your organization will create, deliver, and capture value for this. That knowledge should be at the heart of your ambition for transformation. Decide clearly articulated consequences of transformation from a financial perspective or an operational perspective.
2. Lead with capabilities: Business transformation leaders quickly focus and define the specific capabilities of the enterprise that will help to achieve competitive advantage. In fact, only a few of the total capabilities of an organization play a critical role in helping the organization find new ways to differentiate and compete. Focusing on these vital skills will help deliver greater value, help managers create competitive advantage, and help the company fulfil its potential for successful growth. In order to unlock value through a business transformation, knowing where to start is critical. You should rely on technology, digital presence, how activities are conducted, or general management to base the transformation on.
3. Drive to value: Business transformation leaders articulate the value they expect to achieve through transformation, and monitor, measure, and track value zealously throughout their transformation. Value should be the link between your business strategy and your transformation. Take the time to be explicit about how to create value exactly. Then establish strong, clear links to your plans for execution. A manufacturing company, for example, could overlook a specialized distribution capability needed to support a new multi-channel business model. Similarly, by strategic tax planning, a global financial company could overlook the quality opportunities available. Such factors aren't trivial. They make or break the transition's effectiveness. The BIG question: How do we maintain throughout the transformation process a relentless focus on value?
4. Build in sustainability: Business transformation leaders know that real value is emerging over time through sustained, enduring change. Data is essential to put in place the right capabilities, competencies, and adaptive culture to sustain and increase the value of the transformation. Data-driven change management solutions should be used by leaders. These approaches would promote an empirical and quantifiable approach to handling perceptions, habits and interaction. And they should be more than generic solutions that do not address the organization's unique challenges. By fostering an agile enterprise that accepts new methods of delivering value, leaders can provide a foundation to sustain value post-transformation.
5. Be scalable and flexible: today's executives should be equipped to change constantly across transformation— because the business and technology environments they work in are changing continuously. Leaders should work hard to incorporate agility, innovation, and a disruptive mindset into any initiative for transformation. Such an agile strategy can also help deliver quick results and iterative changes that correspond with the expected quality of change. And an agile strategy with agile approaches will offer early bottom-line gains that can help fund implementation of transition. Another advantage of agility versus a "big bang" approach to delivery: greater transparency and progress visibility—your actual “value capture.” An agile approach also can support your ability to manage complexity and unpredictability, through development processes that are iterative and incremental.
6. Investing in quality leaders to bring in the transformation: Organization Development managers understand that the right leader and expertise can make or break the transition progress. To make major shifts to change how work is done, a good project manager should have authority and reputation within the organisation. Assigning a respected and capable business leader to the strategic goals of the organization is critical to establishing the credibility and importance of the transformation. Most companies make the mistake of not releasing top talent to fund the transition, as that expertise is concentrated on meeting short-term organizational objectives. Yet company transition programs typically require substantial expenditure in corporate capital to meet the change goal, and the return on this investment is often directly proportional to the quality and commitment of the transformation-aligned expertise.
Business transformation is definitely more than just an option for budding start-ups today, it’s a sheer necessity if you want your business to be in the running for years to come, despite of the competition and market shifts. Let us help you through the journey of business transformation. Register here for your first free consultation with us!
