Rethinking Business and Technology "Transformation" Strategy in the VUCA World

“Transformation”?is the most loosely used word in the rapidly changing VUCA world. It is important to find?the “Purpose” of the transformation while you find what is the VUCA for your transformation.

?Transformation is about Rethinking Value creation, rethinking your IT Strategy in line of Business, Business in line of Customers and adopting IT to the customer, and Customers rethinking the Value created by the organization which means bringing better “customer experience”.

?The transformation has 3 key elements.

1. Strategy
2. Design
3. Evolve

1. STRATEGY.. "Think before you jump"

Strategy?is about the opportunity to rethink 360?to?adapt?across Business, Technology, Operating models, Organizational change management, training,?mindset change, learn and unlearning to do better day by day.

It is about coming together as an organization to deliver common ambitions, having said that strategy should focus on

• Goal?- Defining and Articulating the Purpose of the transformation.
• ?Value?– Creating and delivering values by enhancing internal and external stakeholder experience (Employees, Partners, Customers, etc.)
• Reward– Important to celebrate and reward the small and large milestones through the transformation journey.
• Retrospect– Important to measure and retrospect to bring in the best out of the transformation.

2. DESIGN?- "Plot Before You Act"

Design is all about?engineering?and?modernizing?the transformation process. Building digital and modern enterprise decision-making system.

It is about focusing on

• Designing Business Transformations?– Identify and build business capabilities that delivers to key stakeholders’ market opportunities. Make?Operational users,?business users, partners, and customers?as part of the design journey.?
• Designing Digital & Data Transformation –?While doing business transformation, it is critical to bring in digital design thinking and modernizing your legacy system, It brings in agility and speed to achieve transformational goals .?
• Designing Transformation Leadership Team –?Transformation leaders need to understand business, technology, people, process goals, and changes. Bringing in the right leadership team that can balance all these are key for transformation success.?
• Designing Organizational Change Management –?while thinking big on transformation it is important to identify stakeholders who?gets impacted, benefited from the change, and communicate required information across levels. It is critical to design adoption plan and personas as part of the transformation adoption.?
• Designing People Capabilities –?Focus on defining capabilities and competencies across functional, technical, and executional capabilities.?
• Designing for Adoption –?Think end-user adoptability for the change, make the journey joyful by making their operations efficient, equip the workforce to make more effective, analytical based decisions aligned with the business transformation goals.?
• Designing for Scale –?While the transformation journey starts with a specific goal, it is important to think at an enterprise-level?scale. Thinking?data-driven enterprise,?internal marketplace?opportunities,?external marketplace?opportunities, tool collaborations, partner collaborations and beyond.

??3.?EVOLVE?- "Crawl Before You Fly"

Transformation is not a one time journey, it is continuities shift or evolution towards the goal and value creation. It is about focusing on

• Positioning the intermediate milestones and achievements?– It is important to set expectations on intermediate milestones, bring in adoption, celebrate smaller milestones and achievements while the transformation is evolving. Moving away from everything or nothing is critical for transformation success.
• Track Values as Evolve –?As transformation evolves, defining value checkpoints and tracking values delivered becomes key for keeping stakeholders and team’s high motivation.
• Managing the distractions to keep the focus on goals and values –?Mange Trade-offs, identify priorities, setting periodic expectations with key stakeholders.
• Build Sustainability as Evolve –?While the transformation journey addresses low-hanging fruits, it is also important to think long term sustainability both functional and technical.
• Adapt to be Relevant on emerging trends as Evolve -While we run a large transformation journey, we should look for market trends, organization priorities, partner and stakeholder changes to bring in relevance to the transformation.

?In a nutshell, it is not just creating a plan and moving from “Current state”?to “To Be?State” it is important to integrate and connect business strategy to technology evolution to execution discipline to bring in the best in class transformation outcomes and values.