Become a PowerPoint Guru by Dave Tracy
Learn the methodologies, frameworks, and tricks used by Management Consultants to create executive presentations in the business world.
Currently viewing the tag: "Enterprise systems"
Accelerated pace of technological disruption has forced organizations to change. It has triggered leaders to think of the ways they must adopt to survive in these challenging times.
Organizations are confronting this scenario by embracing digital technologies. Traditionally, the focus of the organizations in these Transformation initiatives has remained on speed of change. To get the most out of their initiatives, they are making drastic changes, to include:
- Creating Agile Teams
- Introducing Mobile Apps
- Building Big Data and Analytics capabilities
- Experimenting with creative Digital Business Models.
Digital Transformation programs are launched with huge fanfare, see success early on, but fail to keep the momentum going. The issues that plague the sustainability of these initiatives are typically:
- Aging Technology Infrastructure
- Incompatible Operating Models
- Archaic ways of doing business
- Change-agnostic culture.
Drivers of change for the Digital Leadership have changed significantly over the years. There is an increased focus on building scale when executing Digital Transformation. Leaders have realized that quick Decision Making is not the only element required for successful Transformation. To achieve its full potential, they need to create differentiated offerings and scale the most viable initiatives across the organization to create value.
Traditional organizations have started following the footsteps of digital disrupters like Amazon and Tesla. They are implementing new digital services and adjusting their operations. However, typical hurdles—e.g., old enterprise systems, bureaucratic red tape, delayed decision making, and segregation between IT and business units—make them slip back into the outdated ways of doing things.
Sustainable Digital Transformation involves building not only the technology infrastructure but also revisiting the operating model. Successful Digital Transformations essentially involve embracing 4 key strategies to enable an ecosystem that encourages change to stick as well as scale:
- Create a strong Digital Foundation
- Integrate and consolidate the Digital Ecosystem
- Front-end to back-end approach
- Create a new Business Model
Let’s delve deeper into these strategies.
Create a Strong Digital Foundation
Manufacturing and pharmaceutical industries are the major sectors that employ this strategy. The typical state of affairs in organizations implementing this strategy is such that they are in need of developing new digital capabilities from scratch to tackle nimble rivals who are churning out novel value propositions using digital tech. These companies are burdened by dated tech infrastructure, sluggish decision making, and dated business models. The risk of disruption to these businesses is growing but it hasn’t challenged them to transform drastically.
To them, building a digital foundation warrants acquiring novel foundational capabilities. Their approach should be to start implementing and managing small changes one step at a time. For instance, building a smart technology architecture with advanced Big Data, Analytics, and predictive modeling capabilities. This should be followed by testing prototypes of the new model to prove their worth before implementing a full-blown execution.
Integrate and Consolidate the Digital Ecosystem
This strategy has gained traction most in organizations from the Consumer Products industry. These organizations are typically marred by scores of fragmented IT systems running in different parts of the organization. There is a general inability to prioritize the most viable projects and scale them. The need to reform and rapid deployment of Digital Infrastructure is critical for survival.
The approach to Digital Transformation in these organization should be to establish a central management position to manage the initiative and streamline dispersed technology landscape. This entails revising the technology infrastructure and operating model, deploying a unified IT platform for gathering and storing customer data, establishing a common data repository accessible to all units to recognize customers’ needs, and creating a culture that encourages innovation, acts on creative ideas, and refines them through experimentation and advanced tools.
Interested in learning more about the other strategies to enable Digital Transformation? You can download an editable PowerPoint on Sustainable Digital Transformation here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Did You Find Value in This Framework?
You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:
“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”
– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects
“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”
– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting
“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”
– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd
Initiatives aimed at improving performance are often launched with great uproar, costing an organization significant investments. Such initiatives necessitate extensive changes in the Organizational Culture and the way the enterprise systems and processes function.
However, most initiatives fall short of realizing success. Decades of scholarly research on Change Management reveals that the issues that contribute the most to the failure of strategic initiatives are:
- Incompetence in sustaining process improvement.
- Lack of trust on senior leadership.
- Failure to embrace new ways of doing business.
- Performance relapse.
- Inability of the initiative to produce any positive financial returns.
- Skepticism towards the desired behaviors and return of impractical employee behaviors.
Researchers have carried out scores of studies to isolate the drivers of lasting change. Research published in MIT SMR in 2005 discusses how leadership can design and execute Transformation initiatives that bring lasting changes in the organization. The study entailed in-depth analysis of the strategic Customer Service Enhancement (CSE) initiative undertaken by a large clothing retailer, having franchises in multiple geographic locations.
The researchers conducted 20 semi-structured interviews with leaders, in-store operations and support function managers. Detailed notes of the interviews were shared amongst the researchers alongside an exhaustive literature review. A case study of the initiative was prepared using independent research to have an unprejudiced viewpoint, free from any bias. Feedback from the organization’s management was gathered and incorporated throughout the study to seek clarifications or corrections. Data analysis was carried out employing a coding scheme developed using Atlas.ti tool. Comparative analysis was conducted and similarities and differences in conclusions were discussed.
The study brought to light 4 key processes necessary for change to stick in an organization. These key processes assist in laying the foundation for successful institutionalization of change initiatives by creating a company-wide culture that encourages enduring change:
- Chartering
- Learning
- Mobilizing
- Realigning
Let’s delve deeper into the first 2 processes.
Chartering
Chartering is a process through which an enterprise classifies the purpose, scope, and the way people interact with each other on a strategic initiative. Clear delineation of project boundaries, resources, responsibilities, and reporting lines are the elements integral for the success of a change initiative.
The Chartering process entails 2 critical components:
- Boundary Setting
- Team Design
Boundary Setting involves the key steps a team takes for accurate definition of change initiative’s scope.
The project team should clearly outline the problem(s) that the project is, and isn’t, going to tackle. Ideally, while designing and executing a change initiative, the focus of the engagement should be on confronting the most crucial problem area. The leadership should ensure not to confuse the core team by eyeing too many priorities to deal with through the strategic initiative.
The Team Design element of Chartering involves ascertaining the roles, accountabilities, and guiding principles for team’s collaboration. Team design entails creating ground rules for team members to interact, devising mechanisms to manage conflicts. The leadership needs to not only maintain diversity of the project team’s expertise, but also ensure they complement each other, and inculcate a standardized approach to decision making in project teams. There needs to be fostered a culture of positive discourse and testing ideas amongst the team members. Incorporating these guidelines helps spark thinking, learning, and decision making.
Learning
Learning aids in anticipating and dealing with hurdles during implementation of Transformation initiatives. Learning enables the managers to improve the quality of the new processes. it is a process through which managers develop, test, and refine ideas before full-scale implementation. The process entails 2 critical components:
- Discovery
- Experimentation
For more information on Learning and Development and how to elevate your organization into a Learning Organization, check out the frameworks and tools on Flevy here: https://flevy.com/business-toolkit/learning-organization
The discovery element involves gathering data to identify the objectives of the change initiative and outlining ways to achieve those objectives. Before rolling out a complete implementation of a change initiative, testing and refining the individual elements of the initiative immensely assists in the success of the initiative. Gathering adequate information relevant to the initiative, setting up baseline metrics to measure performance, and identifying issues hampering customer satisfactions are the key aspects of this phase. The team should learn from the failures of prior initiatives, introduce change in a systemic fashion rather than piecemeal, and encourage people to change rationally as well as emotionally.
Interested in learning more about the other processes critical for change to stick? You can download an editable PowerPoint on 4 Processes of Sustainable Change here on the Flevy documents marketplace.
Did You Find Value in This Framework?
You can download in-depth presentations on this and hundreds of similar business frameworks from the FlevyPro Library. FlevyPro is trusted and utilized by 1000s of management consultants and corporate executives. Here’s what some have to say:
“My FlevyPro subscription provides me with the most popular frameworks and decks in demand in today’s market. They not only augment my existing consulting and coaching offerings and delivery, but also keep me abreast of the latest trends, inspire new products and service offerings for my practice, and educate me in a fraction of the time and money of other solutions. I strongly recommend FlevyPro to any consultant serious about success.”
– Bill Branson, Founder at Strategic Business Architects
“As a niche strategic consulting firm, Flevy and FlevyPro frameworks and documents are an on-going reference to help us structure our findings and recommendations to our clients as well as improve their clarity, strength, and visual power. For us, it is an invaluable resource to increase our impact and value.”
– David Coloma, Consulting Area Manager at Cynertia Consulting
“FlevyPro has been a brilliant resource for me, as an independent growth consultant, to access a vast knowledge bank of presentations to support my work with clients. In terms of RoI, the value I received from the very first presentation I downloaded paid for my subscription many times over! The quality of the decks available allows me to punch way above my weight – it’s like having the resources of a Big 4 consultancy at your fingertips at a microscopic fraction of the overhead.”
– Roderick Cameron, Founding Partner at SGFE Ltd
