What is business transformation?

We’ve all seen the headlines: A company that has been at the forefront of its industry for years or even decades suddenly declares bankruptcy or starts plummeting towards certain closure. However, if it had recognised changes in its environment and sought business transformation, this turning of the tide may have been prevented.

According to a Harvard Business Review, business transformation is about “making fundamental changes in how business is conducted in order to help cope with a shift in market.”

So, do you need business transformation and what could it mean to you and your business?

Do you need business transformation?

Slowing growth, competitors taking market share, customer dissatisfaction and changes in your operating environment are all factors that can dramatically affect the bottom line. Any business that is living through any of these, or sees them on the horizon, should be thinking about business transformation.

Avoiding the signals can be the catalyst for business failure, whilst meeting them head on can present new opportunities for businesses success.

Who used business transformation, and who didn’t?

Winston Churchill famously said “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often” and business is no different.

Companies such as Dell, Johnson and Johnson, IBM, 3M and even Apple have all taken a step back at some point and decided to shift their focus in a planned and structured way.

The results speak for themselves, as these companies transformed into household names, or stayed at the top of an increasingly competitive market. On the other hand, horror stories such as Readers’ Digest and Enron still echo through the hallways of business as those that could have remained successful, yet simply failed to adjust to the times.

How will business transformation impact your business?

How business transformation impacts your business is dependent on whether you need a comprehensive nuts-and-bolts overhaul, such as changing the business model, or simply to fine tune your operations.

Factors such as the level of change in your industry and the current state of your business operations will also impact this and could define how smooth or rough the ride ahead will be.

Looking back at Churchill’s comment, if you have been changing often your transformation will be easier, whilst the impact will be felt more if your historical change has been in fits and starts. This is further compounded by the current business environment which is seeing many industries disrupted by global and technological forces.

Where do you start?

Whether significant change or optimisation is required, your business transformation should start by defining where the business wants to be, then understanding where it is today and how to bridge the gap between the two.

Your focus should be on:

• Modelling the business today either across business units or within specific functions
• Mapping the people, business processes and technology vertically and horizontally to understand the flow of activities and resources that support the delivery of products and services to customers
• Designing and implementing the future state of the business

At a high level it’s straightforward to define an approach to business transformation – it’s once you get into the detail that the complexity starts to rear its head. To address this challenge, it’s important that stakeholders are engaged and involved from the beginning: this results in having the right tools in place to support capturing and mapping your transformation, and managing delivery timelines and expectations.

Business transformation is a journey that can last months or even years – it’s only once you take the first step that the journey can begin.

For more information please call us on +44 (0) 1962 835053 or email enquiries@processflows.co.uk.