- Companies across industries are embarking upon large-scale transformations as dramatic market shifts drive reinvention.
- Businesses that don’t adapt could find themselves struggling to meet a perfect storm of challenges: growing customer expectations, increased regulatory scrutiny and new working models.
- Successfully executing a complex transformation requires a clear vision, an integrated approach and a focus on value.
1. Where to Begin on Your Business Transformation Journey?
So where to start?
To some extent, your transformation journey will be guided by your business goals and priorities. Before you begin, you need to be clear on what your transformation needs to achieve.
After that, there are a number of major transformation archetypes that can help you get to where you want to go. These include cloud transformations, digital transformations and operations transformations, but none of them stand alone. Transformation programmes often overlap and run in parallel. Companies need to adapt and reprioritise to keep pace efficiently and effectively.
No two transformations are alike, but at the core, they are all centred around achieving a strategic vision, fostering financial growth and enabling a more nimble, responsive organisation.
2. How Do You Know You Can Complete a Successful Transformation?
It’s a vision thing.
Truly transformative organisations grow their business while shaping the competitive landscape – but it’s easier said than done.
Research has shown that “the transformation journey is taking large enterprises at least twice as long and costing twice as much as originally anticipated.”
Common reasons include lack of executive sponsorship and organisational alignment, not enough resources dedicated to the project, a lack of integration, siloed governance and missing skills or talent.
When transformations slip they can easily become protracted and expensive. But yours doesn’t have to. You just need to get your ducks in a row before you begin.
The details may differ from one company to the next, but you can feel confident about your transformation if you have a clear vision, an integrated approach supported by world-class talent and tools, and a steely-eyed focus on value.
3. Why is Having a Clearly Defined Vision Critical to the Success of a Transformation?
A clear vision is key to your transformation strategy. A keen understanding of the where, why and how at the heart of your project will help keep your transformation on track.
By contrast, without an actionable vision a transformation can easily unravel into a list of incompatible projects. This can leave you way off track or stuck in the same place.
Also, it’s impossible to create a common understanding among employees if there isn’t a common vision from leaders.
And – while a vision can set the compass in the right direction – you also need a road map to turn those aspirations into actions. That means embedding your vision into the design, plans, priorities and day-to-day activities of your transformation.
4. What do Companies Tend to Overlook During a Transformation Journey?
After developing a vision and roadmap, successful transformation is about effective project management.
One common pitfall is that companies neglect to set up a robust governance model. Governance and related controls are the foundation of a successful transformation. It’s crucial to establish clear decision-making and transparent reporting processes, so the transformation can both move at speed and adapt to change.
Making sure people have explicit authority to design solutions for transformation-relevant programmes is also critical.
Finally, you should spend time finding the right talent for the job, including sourcing expertise from external partners in your ecosystem.
5. What is Codestone’s Approach to Transformation?
We approach transformation in a comprehensive way.
From building the right infrastructure for transformational technology to fully integrating cloud into your core processes, Codestone’s 3 Cs Framework (more on that below) provides the firm foundation for a successful transformation. We carefully knit together everything from vision to value realisation.
We collaborate with you to create an overarching transformation design. This prioritises and integrates multiple distinct initiatives, delivers the desired outcomes and remains focused on value throughout. Our data-driven, agile approach helps you manage change and solve problems as they emerge.
We engage with your people, preparing them for new ways of working. We make your business ready to occupy the future state. And we serve as the custodian of the company’s vision, keeping the organisation aligned as the competitive landscape shifts.
6. What are the Key Components of Codestone’s 3Cs Framework?
As a trusted European innovator of Business Transformation Services, Codestone specialises in guiding the offices of the CFO, CIO and COO. Born digital with a client-first technology consultancy approach, we empower organisations like yours to thrive in the pursuit of being future ready.
We help you through every step of the process – from strategy development to change management to technology implementation – while remaining firmly focused on delivering value.
Our 3Cs framework is the cornerstone of Codestone’s Business Transformation approach:
Collaborate
We collaborate closely with you to understand and shape your vision for digital transformation.
Challenge
We challenge your business to view the entire change landscape, and to prioritise the right experience, tools and culture for long-term growth.
Change
We change the way tech transformation consulting is delivered, combining a client-centric approach with wide cross-sector experience. We navigate complexity with speed and agility.
7. How Important Is It to Have a Partner Throughout the Transformation Process?
Codestone not only guides the design and strategy of your transformation, we have the experience to get you across the finish line. That’s important, because mobilising your operating models, governance structures and processes can be a lot different in practice than it is in theory.
A typical transformation involves multiple portfolios that span business groups, functions and IT. When an issue occurs, frontline teams need instant access to comprehensive knowledge and experience. That’s where we come in.
As your end-to-end transformation partner, Codestone will anticipate problems, quickly identify solutions and help you adapt as circumstances change.
At Codestone, we can help you become a transformative enterprise – one that anticipates and embraces change instinctively and naturally. It’s less about transforming for each new challenge, and more about building the right foundation for continual modernisation, innovation and value creation.
Talk to us today.
