Digital Transformation: Fix the process, not the problem
Blame for transformation difficulty is frequently placed at the feet of technology, leadership and time/budget constraints. But, is it often the lack of focus on organizational processes and company culture holding firms back.
Digital Transformation: Fix the process, not the problem
In an ever-changing world, businesses need to adapt and change faster than ever before. Companies that stay ahead of the game understand that it doesn’t matter how long something has been “the done thing,” that thing isn’t sacrosanct. Today digital transformation is a key competitive force, but also an enabler in the process of continual evolution and development.
Whilst changing technology, attitudes and expectations mean companies know they have to transform, many find that they just don’t have the right solutions available. This is especially a challenge for CSPs because of their combination of history, technical specialisation, previously protected market positions, now facing especially rapid change, competition from different sectors and corporate cultures, and fast changing technology in the OSS and BSS layers. All too often the blame for difficulty transforming is placed at the feet of technology, on bosses who over promise and under-deliver, on budget and time constraints or on any one of a multitude of scapegoats. But in actual fact the lack of focus on organizational processes and culture of the company are often the ball and chain holding it back…
Cultural Constraints
How can organization and culture prevent a business from adapting and transforming itself? It might be something as simple as a lack of communication, clear responsibilities and transparency. If colleagues aren’t aware of what is expected of them, or what the overall goals of the company are, how can they be expected to measure up? But the issues often run much deeper, ways of working have built up over time and can be difficult to fix or change for the new environment. When quizzed about their views of digital transformation by the latest TM Forum Digital Transformation Tracker survey (DTT 3), 71 per cent of Communications Service Providers (CSPs) said cultural and organizational issues are a serious barrier to digital transformation. We know digital transformation is essential and it is understood that it is not just about technology. It’s about aligning people, work, skills and behaviours with the new technology and business models. Sadly, the research suggests this is not happening with only 38 per cent of respondents to DTT stating that leadership could be trusted to lead and drive transformational change. 24 per cent felt that the business they worked for recognized and nurtured the sort of talent that might initiate change. Only 42 per cent felt that there was a “safe to fail” culture in their organization. Perhaps most worrying of all, a mere 18 per cent felt colleagues knew how they could make a contribution to any change initiated. With these sorts of attitudes prevailing, is it any wonder that so many organizations are floundering, not sure what to change into, or how to enact that evolution? Tellingly culture and organizational change are identified as two of the biggest stumbling blocks to successful transformation. Nik Willetts, CEO of The TM Forum encapsulated this by saying, “You can’t lead a 21st Century company with a 20th Century culture.”
How to stop bad processes destroying transformation
Companies operate as a consequence of a number of elements. People have roles within an organizational structure and do work (responsibilities and accountabilities within processes) based on skills using tools and technologies at their disposal. These are bound within an operating model and guided by a strategy designed to deliver the corporate vision and goals. Other aspects also play an important part, such as leadership styles, individual impacts and employee engagement. Corporate culture is a consequence of all of these elements, and one changes culture by changing these elements. This requires collaboration between technology, HR and business stakeholders to bring about the change needed to achieve the desired business outcomes. Gartner recently stated1 that “More than 80% of CEOs are focused on driving the digital transformation of their business. They are increasingly turning to their HR leaders to make this transformation. HR is now tasked with leading their organization through this transformation by fundamentally rethinking their approach to the workforce, work, and the way their organization needs to operate to drive organization success.” When organizations get the appropriate stakeholders, approach, tools and data in place to create the right culture they have a much greater chance of success. Get it wrong and it will ultimately lead to failure. Whilst there isn’t a one-size solution that can be applied to any company, in any place or in any environment, there is a framework that organizations can adopt. 1 Gartner ReimagineHR Conference, London, September 2018
This framework forms part of the TM Forum Digital Organization and Culture Transformation Catalyst that is being developed into a TM Forum Standard, which will be launched later this year. It is a proven solution, enabling companies to address digital organization and culture change. The new Standard will give organizations a clear framework to implement these changes in a structured way, and provides a clear vision to help people understand what skills are required and how to impact the broader change. It brings all the cogs together and encourages collaboration, explaining how the operating model, people, organization structure, roles, responsibilities, skills and personal impacts can be aligned with technology to deliver the required business outcome. Finally, it helps people understand what their role in the transformation process is and brings different departments together, such as HR and operations, so that they can enact change. The key value add is that the framework takes a data driven approach across each of these dimensions, transforming the traditional way of doing things into a digital one. We find that using this approach not only are better outcomes realized but organization and culture analysis and redesign can be done in half the time, accelerating time to value in technology investment. It taps into the expertise of three specialists who recognize the importance of digital transformation, and who have enabled hundreds of their clients, many well-known global enterprises, including CSPs, to deliver major, bottom line, business outcomes: Being able to visualize and model the organization, culture and their various dimensions, within the new framework, makes it much easier to shape and evaluate different scenarios, managing the interdependencies between the different aspects of people, roles, processes, skills and culture.
- OrgVue by Concentra with its platform for data driven organization, process, skills, impact visualization and modeling.
- The GC Index® with its approach to personal impact, high performing teams and liberating transformational decision-making.
- Detecon Consulting with its deep expertise in telecoms operating model digitalization and transformation.
T-Systems Uses The New Framework To Boost Digital Transformation
The framework brings these components together for the first time, demonstrating how they work side by side, and how they enhance the overall outcome in the telecommunications industry. This has already been put into practice at T-Systems, to help the Digital Division undertake a major digital transformation project. The overall aim was to deliver organizational change to enable the IoT business to scale to meet the wider business’ objectives for growth. TM Forum’s Digital Maturity Model (DMM) is the first industry-agreed model for navigating CSPs through their digital transformation journeys. At T-Systems the ‘harder’ part of digital transformation: effective transformative people, organization and culture change, was specifically targeted. This has been done by applying a data-driven approach to organizational and cultural transformation creating sustainable business impact. The benefits from this approach are notable: The changes being made will restructure this major ICT solution provider and system integrator, enabling it to take far greater commercial advantage of the fast emerging IoT market than would otherwise have been the case. The revised structure not only is more customer centric, it streamlines processes and clarifies responsibilities for greater agility, and it realigns the people into roles best suited to their skills and proclivities to maximize business results. T-Systems has already started to reap the benefits, with one team leader commenting, “People recognized the framework made a real difference, it changed the way they worked.” 2 TM Forum’s Digital Maturity Model (DMM) is the first industry-agreed model for navigating CSPs through their digital transformation journeys.
- Product innovation: streamlined product / services portfolio and built scalable digital offerings;
- IoT Hub: transformed the Digital Division into Deutsche Telekom’s spearhead for innovative IoT products and services;
- Efficient use of scarce resources: innovative approach on critical capabilities and ways of working (building on DMM2 analysis) increased resource efficiency by more than 50%; and
- Effectiveness via better teamwork: structure, agile methods and capability blending helped change the culture. Collaboration, effectiveness and efficiency created new customer-driven flexibility & agility.
It is time for Technology to collaborate with HR and Operations Transformative benefit is often predicated on the alignment of new businesses, technologies and ways of working. This requires close involvement of the key business units, technology, operations and HR / people transformation functions to bring that change about. Orchestrating such change is no simple task but what the framework used with T-Systems does is bring teams together. The reality is that CIOs who work in silos will fail. There is a real need for CIOs to inspire the digital team, HR transformation team and business operations team to work together to accelerate momentum and improve outcomes. Successful digital transformation requires an organization that is fit for the new purpose – the right people in the right place doing the right things with the right skills. A strategic workforce plan is also necessary to ensure the talent and skills are in place when needed. To do this you need meaningful data that you can look at and trust. Doing this will make a significant difference in helping transform the business to take advantage of digital business models and technologies.
So, what is next?
The benefits of collaboration are abundantly clear. The reality is that when systems and processes talk to each other, people tend to follow suit. By stepping out of the dark and centralising data so that meaningful information can be easily shared across the organization, functions like HR, operations and digital can work together to supercharge digital transformation. The workplace will be an entirely different place in twenty years than it is today, and unrecognizable in fifty. Proven solutions, such as this Standard, will be needed to enable companies to adapt, evolve and maintain their place.
Keith Willetts, Founder of the TM Forum, said, “Every Telco CEO needs to see this.” To find out more about the framework contact: OrgVue by Concentra: Mike.Smith@concentra.co.uk The GC Index®: Nathan.Ott@thegcindex.com Detecon: Bjoern.Menden@detecon.com