UPDATING THE ORGANIZATION

Mostly Organizations keep their business model and internal structure until deep problems arise, margin or revenue fall down or disruption comes up and pushes Organization management to face the change and adapt to reality. Then Organization needs to update to real life, Clients and/or market requirements. This dynamic is global in all businesses and countries. Only future-focused market Companies really take into account what′s coming up in order to adapt its organization to changes before those become a deep problem. General Electric is a good sample of Company updating Organization to future since Jack Welch times, it never stops adapting to market challenges and Clients needs. On the other side, we all know business stuck in the past without adapting to Clients needs not even technologically: banking is probably a clear sample facing now fintech start-ups without answers. We should also mention most of the automotive industry as far away from reality example suddenly awakening when Tesla launches electrical vehicles, the   rest of players don′t know how to face it.

How do we do to adapt Organization to Clients new requirements, technology improvements, market disruption and/or job market changes? This adaption vision is not only a position in the chart assuming all challenges as coordinator, it needs the entire Organization to be ready to listen to Clients   analyzing technology improvements, detecting potential disruptions and reading job market changes with millennials coming in. It begins from Managers listening to all around them going out of usual silos and it also needs an organizational dynamic to be opened to change. This openness to change skill is easy to build in new organizations; we only need to see what all IT start-ups grew up during the last ten years following digital changes. But it is very difficult to get this open-minded attitude in Organizations founded many years ago and significantly in business environments where changes were not needed or welcomed.

To update Organizations older than twenty years we can describe the following three Key points:

1.- Client as first priority

2.- Silos and risk aversion to be broken

3.- Process improvement and digitalization

1.     Client as first priority is a culture for all People working within the Organization if we want to get trends and needs from Clients. Usually, it takes a long time to explain how important is to know Client wills and needs, then train, check, re-train again to all the staff in the Organization. From my experience, I can tell you that in old Organizations some People don′t know what the Client means/wants, either because they were never working directly for Clients or because in their position Client was out of the process. For those colleagues, the Organization needs to provide more training effort in order to get the Client as the most important aim of the Organization. Also, an internal communication campaign would make sense in order to have a common vision of the client’s.

2.     Silos and risk aversion to be broken is the second usual Key point to be faced during Updating Organization process in Companies older than 10 years without changes in its structure nor in their chart. Long term no-change organizations often show working in Business lines or departments like silos, looking only their short term and short scope of their tasks and responsibilities. Still worse, silos mean focusing in only-my-area mind forgetting Client and losing view of entire business, blaming other People for every single problem could appear. Impact of this short view is direct in Organization performance, because BL/departments work far away from each other reluctant to work together. Instead as Team working they work Team avoiding, instead as Team building they work Silos building. When Clients ask for better or new services, all silos usually at expect Sales department to provide an answer to the Client, although that answer might come from a technical or production department. Client needs are difficult to manage because each silo looks inside its box answering from its own box, preventing the Client from obtaining the one answer and the one contact he/she is expecting.

No-change organization also means risk aversion: because silos are comfort zone for its members, they do not want to change neither assume smallest risks. Its impact within businesses is deep because any new activity, idea or proposal to change usually is refused as high risk for the activity. Silos People are mostly so reluctant to assume risks because they rarely assumed higher responsibilities, instead they were working as automatic machines doing the same process for a long time without asking themselves if it was efficient or a waste of time and resources. New management on board needs to be clear to those silos & risk aversion People: as part of the Team they need to adapt to new times and support entire Team within new strategy. Of course there is always People who don′t want to adapt to change. Some of those reluctant-to-change People could leave and start a new professional project because if they stay they will create lots of problems within Team and Organization. 

3.- Process improvement and digitalization is a must in all organizations to update to Client needs. It requires process analysis and options to improve and cut off less efficient parts in order to be faster and more efficient in all kind of processes, the ones developed on Client facilities and the ones inside own Organization. Process improvement needs to come from the entire Team, asking all Team members how they work and how do they think their processes should run better. Team commitment is key to achieve a real and deep process improvement because if there is a process involving only Quality Management People it could become a document only to be filled without being implemented or improving processes because if the process involves only Quality Management people, it could end up in a fulfilled form without being implemented at all.

Up to date improving processes implies improving digitalization, taking most efficient technology to deliver services, to develop products, to monitor Clients needs and to manage and motivate People. During the analyzing process to improve, the Organization has the best opportunity to adapt its focus to Client needs, putting Client on top of all improvements becoming a Client-centered Organization and significantly on top of digitalization. The Client can get his information and documentation directly from the Organization app and maybe can even ask for new services through the same way. Digitalization should help Organization to get inputs and feedbacks from Clients and their satisfaction with service, products, documents, calls and all kind of actions the Organization gives or delivers to Clients.