June Connections video: Where digital transformation comes up short

I’m calling a spade a spade.

There’s so much talk about digital transformation these days — but it’s a misnomer. “Transformation” means to thoroughly change, but if you’re just looking at digital, it’s only part of the picture for a manufacturing business.

Let’s start talking about what matters more in the growth trajectory of a company: business transformation.

In this month’s Connections video, I’m kicking off the conversation around business transformation. Watch this 7-minute video to learn what business transformation really is, and the process to get there successfully.

Hi there, Erin Koss, CEO at Syte Consulting Group. Today, I want to talk a little bit about this idea of digital transformation, which seems to be the hot topic everywhere. I’m going to maybe call a spade a spade here and say that, you know what? I don’t think it’s really the hot topic. We think it is. I think it’s part of the story and it’s not all of the story. But what we’re really here to talk about today is business transformation.

This idea that to transform a business requires a thorough change. The word transformation actually means to thoroughly change. And if you’re looking at just digital, that’s not super thorough. It’s a piece of it. Right? It’s the electronics. It’s the technology. But what we talk about is business transformation. It’s really that comprehensive, complete change that helps a business get from where they are today to where they’re trying to go strategically in a way that really drives a return on investment, increases their competitiveness and really serves their their customers and their partners in a more effective way.

When we talk about business transformation, we think about it as a four-step process. I want to share a little bit about that with you today because we’re going to be talking about that a lot in the coming months this summer and into the fall. The four-step process that we use to ensure that we have a complete process for business transformation over a period of time, along a roadmap in a way that can be digested by an organization in a manageable and real way goes something like this.

The first thing we do is we talk to our clients about doing an internal self-evaluation that we call a transformational readiness evaluation. Let’s look at all of the pieces that go into transformation, have them do a self-assessment and then provide really valuable feedback on those gaps in the issues and help them understand what needs to be addressed before they even get started. The second piece is looking at what we call doing what we call a business assessment. They seem they sound like they might be a little similar, but they’re not.

The business assessment is really about meeting with the executive team and ensuring there’s solid sponsorship for whatever initiative they plan to take on in the coming months. We help them understand the timeline, the scope and the capabilities and capacity that is required for the size of projects that they’re trying to take on at the work stream level. This is an assessment at the process level, if you will, or work stream level. The business assessment is going to take a little deeper dive look at that level so that we look at and identify with a client.

What are the gaps and challenges that you might face as you’re trying to transform the business from a process of work stream perspective? So backing up again,…we’ve got the transformational readiness evaluation. Are you ready?

Everywhere.. people, process, technology, capabilities, and capacity, business assessment, executive team. Are you really ready to sponsor this thing that you think that you need? And are you looking at it in all the right ways at the work stream level? Is the workflow ready?

Is it understood in a way that will allow it to be transformed in a most efficient way? Where are the “gotchas”? Once you have both those pieces of information, you’re now ready to do a software evaluation and selection. Now, for us as an ERP solution company, this is a usually a big part of the story because it’s so foundational to helping a company transform that this is really typically the type of thing that we’re doing when we talk about enterprise solution selection.

However, it could be any type of technology or application that is critical to driving the business. But the steps prior to that, the Transformation Readiness Evaluation, as well as the business assessment, set the stage for the requirements that drive whatever technology or solution selection you might take on. And then finally, once you’ve made that selection, it’s all about implementation. You will be looking at truly implementing the transformational project processes, people, process, and technology that you were that you need to put in place to get where you’re trying to go.

So again, foresight, it’s a four-step process. It’s a roadmap. It’s a plan. It’s thorough and it’s intentional and it’s built that way so that companies and in particularly our family, our manufacturing clients who are a big part of who we serve, don’t bite off more than they can chew earlier than they can do so. Then once they decide to take the lead, they’re doing so in a really methodical way. One of the things that’s critical to our process behind the scenes as well as in every step of the way, will be that we’re looking at those four steps on the roadmap.

Each step is we follow the same process and we help our clients do this with us and a really collaborative way, which is going through a process of discovery, working together to really understand one another and understand that topic, that step early. The next piece is to define the roadmap of that phase. Each phase is has its own roadmap, but it’s part of a bigger story as well. So there is discovering there’s defying and then finally deliver.

So in each phase, there’s a delivery phase. In the transformational readiness evaluation, same process discovered define deliver all the way down through implementation where there’s a whole neither effort related to discover, define and deliver. Now, the benefit is when we are working with our clients over a long period of time. Certainly, it’s not a rebuild the engine on the discovery phase. Certainly, we get to know each other so thoroughly that the discovery phases is pretty small by the end.

But it is an important part of the process that each step of the way you’re revisiting what’s important about what it is we need to know here. Are we defining the roadmap clearly for where we’re going, where it is we’re trying to go, getting the desired outcomes we’re trying to get and then ultimately making sure that we deliver and get the results that we’re trying to achieve?  And so, again, it’s about business transformation and we’re so excited to talk about this more and more this summer.

In fact, you’re going to see a number of posts from me this summer from some of our partners potentially, and as well as a few videos, I bet that they are all going to talk about this business transformation process. Now, it’ll touch on digital transformation but in reality, it’s a story about business transformation and getting to that thorough change from a strategic perspective that gets companies to grow in scale in a sustainable way that’s meaningful for the long term.

Join me this summer and this fall as we have these important conversations and as we go along, we would love to get your feedback and your input on how you’re approaching this. Let us know what’s working and where might you be challenged. Finally, if you’re just getting started, you might think about talking to us about our transformational readiness evaluation. Again, as I mentioned earlier, it’s a self-evaluation and it’s something that you can take internally at your own pace, work with your leaders, your managers, your executive team to answer fairly.

Then, we’ll give you some feedback on that and help you figure out what you need to do before you take on a really big change management project. So let us know how we can help and let us know how you’re doing. Talk to you later.