Digital transformation: 5 levers for more effectiveness

We’ve all been there – to strengthen competitiveness and increase value creation, management decides to make the organization more agile, introduce a new standard product, launch an in-house development or realign its own process organization. This or similar decisions are made by managers today in order to meet the diverse market requirements in times of digital transformation and increase effectiveness. Regardless of whether this involves optimizing processes, meeting compliance requirements or developing new products.

What begins with euphoria and initial enthusiasm for the new system soon shows the first cracks. Processes are not documented, where they are documented, those involved get lost in the minutiae so that the actual goal is lost sight of, processes are only viewed sequentially, support from the various departments is not ensured, key terms are understood differently – to put it briefly:

Conversions become more time-consuming and complicated and do not bring the improvements that were initially hoped for.

Instead, we get complicated, inefficient processes that fall far short of the expected benefits despite digitization. What remains are excessive costs and the stale aftertaste of having imagined things differently. Blame is apportioned and what you don’t get is a sustainable improvement. So it’s no wonder that no one breaks out in a storm of enthusiasm when it comes to digital transformation.

Is this completely foreign to you? Lucky you – then you can save yourself the following explanations. For everyone else, I recommend reading on – it’s worth it.

What has happened so far?

You have introduced methods – you are familiar with ITIL, CMMI, COBIT, TOGAF, ISO27001, Prince2, PMI SAFe. You have tried everything – and yet it still doesn’t work the way you thought it would. Process documents to describe requirements exist and yet there are considerable deviations in the requirements to be implemented, budgets are inadequate, processes are not mapped appropriately, the applications still have too many errors.

What is missing?

The effectiveness of the measures is lacking. In order to increase this, there is a lack of a functional, effective and efficient process for creating and implementing the new measures and processes. Starting with the

• objective or strategy of the company,
• breaking down the value creation processes,
• the identification of causalities of the impact processes in both directions, both top-down and bottom-up,
• and answering the questions of “why?” and “how?”.

In short: there is a lack of interlocking and intermeshing of processes, automatisms and manual activities.

Who is affected?

To say that this is a problem of a specific industry or company would be very short-sighted. At the BAMAC Group, we can observe the challenges described above in companies in all sectors as well as in public administration. The latter is additionally burdened by the numerous bureaucratic regulations.

Solution: Increase the effectiveness!

If we get to the bottom of the findings, we can identify the following levers that increase effectiveness and added value and contribute to a noticeable improvement in process results.

Lever 1: Customer centricity – aligning processes with the customer

Align the processes to be implemented with the customer’s needs. Starting with the determination of requirements, the implementation and the continuous improvement of processes together with the customer. They form the basis for a sustainable orientation of the company and increase added value.

Lever 2: Describe service level – end-to-end

The aim is for the new processes to be established to promote both the company’s value creation and supporting processes. It is essential that each of these new processes has a fixed procedure, fixed responsibilities and a traceable data flow. It is important to always manage from an end-to-end and customer-centric perspective in order to maximize the value contribution.

Lever 3: Establish key figures – less is more!

Measure the processes with the help of key figures. Make sure that you choose key figures that are useful to you. Less is often more. Check exactly which ones you actually need. Be courageous and cut back – otherwise you will lose energy unnecessarily.

Lever 4: CIP – Continuously review process quality

Continuously review the new procedures. Ask yourself the following questions:

• Are they being adhered to?
• Where is there resistance?
• What can be improved?
• Are the performance and quality right?

And check this with everyone involved in the process. This can be done both internally through regular CIP meetings (CIP: Continuous Improvement Process) and externally through assessments or benchmarking.

Lever 5: Communication – Communicate progress and challenges

Communication with all those involved in the process is an important building block. Don’t just communicate procedures and results. In addition to successes, it is just as important to share learning experiences. It is also worth addressing challenges openly with stakeholders. Your colleagues and customers will thank you for it. Effective change management is crucial for success and increasing added value.

Conclusion: What can we learn from this

We know from practical experience that a method or procedure is no guarantee of improvement in your company. As a rule, the methods do not claim to do so, as they focus on the “WHAT” and not on the “HOW”. In this article, I would like to focus on the “effectiveness” or the “HOW”. It is the starting point for acceptance and the basis for efficiency.

What experiences have you had with it? Do you share the solutions? What others can you contribute?

Let’s have a chat and write to me.

I look forward to your feedback!

Best wishes from Hennef

Jürgen Bach