How to Transform a Company in Three Years

Raj Kurup

— 5 min read
How to Transform a Company in Three Years
Photo by ZoeteaTechnologies

Background

Many enterprises struggle with time-boxed transformation that is effective, expeditious and sustainable. To compound that we have strategic advisors who come up with recommendations that are not contextual and don’t have skin in the game to follow through and implement their recommendation. This blueprint shows how to implement a 3-year transformation roadmap that has been successful and can be replicated at any enterprise.

 Year 1 – The Way We Get Work Done

You need to spend the first year understanding the company culture, navigation of politics and financials

  1. Culture
    1. Understand the current company culture and how it evolved over the years
    2. Acknowledge and foster the clicks and connections built over the years between teams
    3. Flesh out the hot spots in the current org structure that hinders agility and speed to market
    4. Identify the change agents who are willing to change while preserving the legacy
    5. Embrace the current culture as the soul that will power change
  2. Politics
    1. Learn the current enterprise-wide politics and how to navigate through it (Kingdon’s model)
    2. Build relationship with key stakeholders who will help with navigation of politics
    3. Look for low hanging fruits/quick wins where lingering stalemate and issues can be quickly resolved through negotiation and influential leadership
    4. For complex issues that are hindered by current politics, build a plan to resolve them based on agenda setting and identify window of opportunity to implement it
    5. Communicate regularly to build and retain trust with stakeholders
  3. Financials
    1. Understand the current Capex and Opex spend and accounting policies around it
    2. Track short-term cost savings targets and tactics to meet them
    3. Identify all categories of labor spend and compare them with industry benchmarks
    4. Identify all categories of non-labor spending and compare them with industry benchmarks
    5. Review the yearly capital spend, ROI on them and alignment with enterprise strategy & vision

 Year 2 – Build Resiliency

You need to spend the next year building resiliency so that any transformation can be operationalized and scale across the enterprise and be persistent for the long term. You need to build this resiliency in your enterprise in the following areas

  1. Infrastructure Resiliency – This will be the foundation of all the resiliencies for an organization. We need a resilient infrastructure that is secure, modern, future-proved, enables speed to market and is cost effective.
  2. IT Operations Resiliency – You need to have a robust way to handle business disruptions and restore operations in an expeditious manner. This can be achieved with a mature Operations Command Center, Major Incident Management, Change Management, Release Management, Operations SWAT Team and Metrics/KPIs.
  3. Core Business Operations Resiliency – We need robust Core Business Operations supporting the core business functions directly impacting the enterprise P/L that compliments IT Operations through mature Business Processes, Business Continuity Plan and Intelligent Automations.
  4. Shared Business Operations Resiliency – We also need a robust Shared Business Operations that supports back-office functions and enables the Core Business functions to achieve their capabilities and goals.
  5. Portfolio Resiliency – We need a mature portfolio management process that manages the capital investment frugally through an Agile based framework that is backed by a measurable cost benefit analysis and metrics, KPIs and OKRs while tracking the return on investment and value generated out of the capital spend. The process should also be able to track, and program manage all critical initiatives that fulfil the strategic vision.

 Year 3 – Transformation

Finally, you need to spend the final year building, refining & accelerating Business and Engineering Transformation supporting business under the purview of a Transformation Office.

Why we need a Transformation Office

  1. Most likely the current ‘The Way We Get Work Done’ Model will be slow and full of busy work
  2. There will be a lack of Execution Prowess in most of the initiatives, and we need an alternative framework to drive execution
  3. Many employees are expected to be ‘resistant to change’ and/or stuck in ‘defending the past’
  4. There will be a lack of ‘culture of trust’ that needs to be replaced by culture of ‘trust and inspire’
  5. While we want to change the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) and mindset, that will take at least 3-5 years, and we cannot wait that long to transform the enterprise
  6. There will be forward-thinking employees who will feel stuck, and we need to give them a path to accelerate
  7. While Transformation Office operates in an accelerated mode, it can coexist with the normal process that can operate in a slower cadence and get inspired by the pace of Transformation Office.
  8. Transformation Office will enable external vendors and partners to add value faster while taking risks and generate better outcomes
  9. Transformation Office will enable building High Performing team and improve Speed to Market
  10. This will also attract better talent from outside and improve talent and morale of existing employees who want to be part of the Transformation Office.
  11. Transformation Office can be funded using existing investments by leveraging Portfolio commitments
  12. Finally, Transformation Office will enable much needed Growth for our enterprise

How the Backlog of the Transformation Office Could look like

  1. Shared Services (Procurement, Finance, HR, Legal, Compliance etc.)
    1. Document current processes and codify/automate repeatable functions
    2. Build variations to processes to enable faster execution on smaller deliverables
    3. Enable self-service functions through robust Knowledge Base and functions
    4. Build Persistency in execution to improve speed to market
    5. Implement Org Realignment where appropriate
  2. Functional Areas (IT, Operations, Lines of Business etc.)
    1. Build Product-minded Team with a roadmap and product backlog; Align with Persistent teams in other areas
    2. Build & Measure Enterprise level KPIs based on qualitative and quantitative analytics data
    3. Document current processes and codify repeatable functions
    4. Enable Intelligent Automation and implement Workflow capabilities to remove manual and inefficient processes
    5. Implement Org Realignment where appropriate

Change Management

  • As expected, any transformation will cause a lot of changes in the organization, and we need to manage the change proactively. Some of the key tenants of a robust Organizational Change Management Strategy includes
  • Engage a Change Management Expert to manage through this change as this cannot be implemented and managed by part-time resources.
  • Finalize the new Org Structure as you will most certainly need to reorganize your team.
  • Identify the right future state roles and document skillset for the new roles for your team based on the new org structure.
  • Map all existing roles (with associated employees) to the new role
  • Create Change Mgmt/Career Development Plan for each role that is customized for individual employee
  • Conduct Change Mgmt training for all People Manager and Employees
  • Setup daily Change Mgmt Office Hours to hear concerns and answer questions during transformation
  • Assist People Managers in setting up regular checkpoints assessing career development progress for each colleague
  • Monitor and Track progress through appropriate metrics
  • Manage through any fallouts working in close collaboration with your HR

 Final Thoughts

While this is a very aggressive 3-year transformation plan, it can be achieved with the right support from leadership with a robust Organizational Change Management strategy and an execution plan to successfully implement the same. Each phase of the transformation could have a long tail that spans multiple years after the initial implementation. Key to achieving this is the right mindset and the culture that fosters influential leadership, art of the possible mindset, execution prowess and not resisting change or defending the past.

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