Business transformation is an essential capability that you need to integrate into your ongoing processes without disrupting your operations. Let's explore how you can change your organization without creating chaos.
Business transformation is a constant for the modern organization. You need to be able to pivot, adapt, and leverage, no matter how customer needs fluctuate.
To do that, you need to adapt your business processes and technology architecture to support you in whatever endeavors you need to undertake to grow and thrive. Yet, that's easier said than done, as transformation is far from straightforward.
Even as you undertake the complex task of adapting your organization to give it the best chance of competing in the market, you can't take a break from actually making money. Not only will your shareholders not be pleased, but you won't be able to fund your transformation without income.
How do you adapt your business to the needs of the market without disrupting your ongoing operations? We've prepared a selection of tools and guidance that will empower you evolve your business along with the needs of the market.
For support in enabling business transformation, download our free playbook:
FREE WHITE PAPER: The Business Transformation Management Playbook
Business transformation is a new way of thinking about an old problem. What we once called 'digital transformation' has now expanded to include any kind of widespread change to your organization.
We don't need to explain just how turbulent the world has increasingly become or how the businesses that thrive are the ones that adapt to the changes as they arise. Remember:
- Nintendo was once a playing card company
- Amazon used to just sell books
- Netflix offered DVD rentals
When the digital age began, we all initially thought that a single digital transformation to adapt to the cloud and remote working and ecommerce would do. Of course, we've now realized that technology will continue to evolve and we need to evolve with it, but technology isn't the only problem.
From unprecedented events to worldwide supply chain issues, enterprise needs to be constantly ready to adapt to the changing needs of the market. Far from a one-off digital transformation, the need for organizational change has become a constant pressure.
The only way to cope with that pressure is to make change a repeatable business process. By building agility into the very fabric of your organization, you can pivot and adapt your business model to whatever happens in the future.
Transformation and agility are your business now and it goes far beyond just updating to digital. That's what we mean when we talk about business transformation.
However, the problem with constant pressure to transform your business is that your business cannot stop while you transform. You can't pause all your operations while you adapt your business model to the current market needs and market needs will never stop changing.
Jumping Off A Moving Train...
Business transformation can feel like leaving a train carriage while it's still in motion, only for it to go careening on without you. Your money-making operations may not be able to be spun down while you transform your business to a new way of working.
For example, say you need to update your customer relationship management (CRM) platform to a cloud-based version. Do you close down all your processes in the old tool first or do you undertake the complex work of migrating everything?
This leaves you with a trilemma of three unpleasant options:
- Cancel your ongoing operations and lose out on revenue until you swap over to your new system
- Complete all your current processes and allow your pipeline to empty before launching your new system
- Run two concurrent systems at the same time and deal with the added complexity
The first two options will harm your revenue, while the third will increase your costs. Whichever you choose, the issue is more than just operational and will have an impact on your bottom line.
To avoid losing out on profits, the winding down of your old system would need to be utterly seamless for both your staff and your customers. Not to mention, the onboarding of your new system would need to not only be just as seamless, but the value needs to be immediately clear.
...And Jumping Back On Another
Business transformation requires seamlessly offboarding your customers and staff from your old ways of working, while also onboarding them into your new operational framework. To maintain our metaphor, this goes beyond jumping off a moving train and becomes more akin to leaping from one moving train to another going in the opposite direction.
Added to the same complexity of transitioning your operations into your new way of doing business is the need for change management. You have to explain to your users, both employee and customer, how the change will benefit them or the change is simply an inconvenience, and when change becomes constant, that inconvenience can become intolerable.
By minimizing the effort required for your users to transition to your new processes and ensuring you've sold them on the value of the transition, you can gain stakeholder buy-in for change across the board. If you can repeat that process for every transformation, then you can build a culture of continuous transformation that will empower your organization to thrive.
To do that, however, you need to know precisely what value your new process will have for your real stakeholders. You need to understand the deficiencies of your old system, the user pain points, and how the new way of doing things will overcome the issues.
Transformation success requires a comprehensive understanding of your current and goal states and how your users interact with them. Gaining that oversight of your IT landscape and future vision requires comprehensive monitoring and analysis, which you can only achieve with the right toolset.
Business Transformation In Motion
Business transformation isn't a one-and-done process, and it isn't something you can stop and take your time over. Continually growing and evolving your business requires managing two complex machines full of moving parts and getting them in perfect synchronization.
Your current and target states don't remain stable while you switch your business from one to the other. Your current state will continue to change, while your plan for the future will also need to adapt and evolve, making it even more difficult to plan your transition.
You can't do this blindfolded, as you need to constantly monitor every aspect of your legacy process and the development of your new operations. That's more than manual analysis can handle, and you need complex automations designed and built for business transformation in order to guarantee success.
By mapping all your business capabilities and processes through automated research and user surveys, you can create a complete picture of your existing architecture and the software applications and IT components that support them. Using an advanced sandbox design environment, you can then build a vision for your new business processes and IT landscape, and map a path to get there.
With an advanced toolset to keep all of this data in one place, you can keep track as your current and target states pivot and change. You can also adapt your plan for change as you continue to move forward.
Without these capabilities, your organization won't be able to adapt to a rapidly evolving world and you face being left behind your competitors. That's why we've put together the perfect toolset to enable your business transformations now and into the future.
SAP LeanIX For Business Transformation
Business transformation requires detailed, dynamic oversight of your organization's processes, software applications, and user behavior. To help you gain this clarity on your business landscape, we've created a triumvirate of tools for you to use to drive continual transformation.
First, SAP Signavio will map your business processes, surface pain points, and support you in designing your new process architecture. To drive the transformation, WalkMe will guide your people through your new processes step-by-step, and provide you with comprehensive information on their behavior.
Lastly, SAP LeanIX will track your technology with a comprehensive map and reporting on your software applications and IT components. This will empower you with the intelligence you need to transition to new technology without disrupting your ongoing operations.
For support in enabling business transformation, download our free playbook:
