basictraining
BY ART VAN BODEGRAVEN AND
KENNETH B. ACKERMAN

time to transform transformation?

BUSINESS TRANSFORMATION (BT) HAS BEEN the phrase of the month for quite a while now, and countless consultants have amassed wealth delivering whatever BT is to clients who have been willing to suspend disbelief and get past the price tag for the sake of the sound of the concept.

Too cynical? We confess to a bias, as working consultants, for turning hopes into reality over creating impossible dreams. Sort of a Little Engine That Could yin to the yang of Don Quixote.

BT through technology

But what is Business Transformation? Maybe the definition depends on who’s selling it. For some, BT is synonymous with the implementation of new systems, Yet it seems to us that a lot of these enabling technologies aren’t so much about transforming processes as they are about conforming processes to their definitions (and limitations). That’s generally a recipe for disaster.

We daren’t speculate about what percentage of enter-prisewide systems implementa-

tions never get beyond the finance and accounting modules because organizations and their resources collapse from exhaustion before the nuts and bolts of the operation can be fully integrated into the enterprise solution. And that’s to say nothing of the considerable financial and IT resources required to customize the systems to meet operational realities.

Take the case of the billion dollar corporation that undertook an enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation. Ten years on, the supply chain folks do not have systems support that is user-friendly and process-enabling—and nothing resembling warehouse management functionality. In addition, the operating end of the company has felt compelled to develop— haltingly and in-house—systems that approximate order management. They remain a work in progress five years into the exercise.

As you might expect, this tends to have a demoralizing effect on the staff. Operational folks get pretty jaded pretty quickly when they discover that transformation

isn’t going to make their work lives any better, and may make them worse.

BT through process

Other will tell you Business Transformation is all about process—that is, re-engineering an organization’s operating procedures to eliminate waste and allow it to do more with less.

But there can be an unfortunate tendency among the promoters of process-driven transformation to seek brilliance, breakthrough, and strategic redirection. Sometimes, radical and unconventional thinking is useful; sometimes, it is even on target. And sometimes, it is a futile and counterproductive exercise.

When process redesign pursues change for the sake of change, new strategies for the sake of perceived elegance, and radical options for the sake of shock value, there are serious risks that the people who have got to make all these things happen will refuse to get on the bus. Adding outsourcing to the mix can make for an even more combustible situation.

We know—first-hand—of a case in which self-anoint-ed masters of innovation devised, and attempted to ramrod through another billion dollar enterprise, a solution set that simultaneously threw part of the operating organization out on the street, threatened a significant part of the remainder with replacement through outsourcing, and alienated mission-critical components of the supply base.

Brilliant.

BT through people

Others will tell you the key to Business Transformation is to focus on the “people” component of the “people, process, technology” mantra we all love to cite. Today, there are battalions of consulting specialists who focus on “organizational development”: building high-per-forming teams, effective communications, building (or rescuing) business relationships, understanding styles and motivations, roasting marshmallows around the campfire, working and playing well with others, and so on and so forth.