The Foundation of Transformation

The foundation of transformation is grounded in the need to accelerate growth. Technical debt, architectural constraints that inhibit scaling, lack of relevant skills, very tight margins, technology lock-in are all examples of conditions that slow a company down and lose its competitive edge.

The picture above illustrates the idea of death and rebirth. The failure of the status quo and the influences above cause this corporate "slow death". I would hope that we recognize the decline early enough to begin the rebirth through transformation.

Enterprises can be made up of several different parts, depending on the industry they are in. But in general, they have shared services functions such as HR, Finance, Purchasing, IT/Tech, Employee Productivity, etc; and they have Product functions such as Creative, Production, Manufacturing as well as Operations functions and Sales/Marketing functions.

In general, businesses that need transformation have a malaise that negatively impacts all parts of the functions mentioned. This comes through in a lack of teamwork across groups, multi-layer decision-making, an aversion to automation, and on and on.

This complexity is why "transformation" is NOT a technology project. It is a business reengineering project that requires a strategy, a plan and milestones along a strict timeframe. (No CEO wants to embark on a journey where you do not know the destination nor when you might arrive.)

Of course, we all understand that these journey can vary wildly depending on industry, market and the specific set of issues they have. But a standard framework of due diligence can shine a light on all areas and work from there.

There are a standard set of "journey lines" I focus on that may help:

• Technology
• Processes
• Skills (notice I did not say people)
• Automation
• Financial Model
• Culture

In the next installment I will share what we do with these six (6) indicators. How we evaluate them, make plans for them and measure progress toward our goals.