Leading Enterprise Digital Transformation
SOLUTIONS
Companies that were not "born digital" generally have a lot of changing to do in order to shape themselves for a successful future. But people tend to RESIST change, even when it's essential.
Most large companies have so many failed digital efforts that the field is littered with dead bodies. Transformational change absolutely can and does happen, though. It happens when a leader inspires teams across an organization, organizes them around a clear vision, and gets the resources and political support to make it happen.
Because FROM tends to work on projects that move the organization forward in terms of its digital value proposition, most of our clients utilize our capabilities to support not only the implementation of digital initiatives but the strategic leadership approach that will achieve the level of buy-in and collaboration necessary for success.
We bucket our work around digital transformation leadership into three primary categories which can be utilized in parallel.
You have an idea about the digital transformation your company needs to undertake, however your individual mandate does not extend to the full realization of that vision. Perhaps you are the CMO but need to bring on board operations, or a CIO who wants to "sell" a vision for a digitally-enabled value proposition to the "business." Turning a brick and mortar retailer into a thriving e-business or a manufacturer used to multi-tiered distribution channels into one that sells direct, these types of changes create challenges to existing business models and frankly may threaten some people's jobs, P&Ls, or internal empires. FROM has extensive experience working in large enterprise environments to navigate the politics and build coalitions. In addition, operate the Innnovation Loft, a unique workshop space in Manhattan where executive teams from companies as diverse as Spotify and Ernst & Young come to ideate, prioritize, and most importantly gain cross-organizational alignment around transformational initiatives.
In addition, FROM creates vision maps and other communication tools to help sell the "story" of the current burning platform and the future digital opportunity that the organization needs to rally around.
Lastly, our MBA-enabled team of analysts can help build the business case that will satisfy the financially minded that the vision makes business sense.
Effective digital transformation requires getting large parts of your organization engaged. Why? First because conceiving the optimal vision and transformation path is challenging. It requires deep insight into your customer segments, products, competition, distribution channels, and production capabilities. It also requires insight into legal/regulatory considerations, technology platforms including your legacy systems, and key business processes and policies. That knowledge and experience is typically scattered across your organization. The successful leader of a digital transformation finds ways to pull those insights together to optimize the vision for the future as well as the path to get there. Furthermore, when it comes time to implement, do you want people across your organization "pulling for" success or actively resisting it? People naturally resist change. But they support the change that they are a part of. FROM can help you get your entire organization positively and enthusiastically engaged in your digital transformation and we have a number of tools to do so.
Our Innovation Index is a benchmarking tool that evaluates the ten criteria our research shows are key to successful to enterprise innovation and allows you to see how your organization, across departments, compares to industry standards and key competitors.
We leverage best-in-class idea management platforms-- the modern equivelant of the "suggestion box" but re-imagined for our socially-engaged world. Through these tools employees or customers can provide a constant stream of insights and product ideas that can be mined for gold nuggets.
We provide Innovation Training to your teams to arm them with techniques for rapid customer research, better ideation and brainstorming, team prioritization and decision-making, and the utilization of LEAN processes for iterative product development.
One reason some companies struggle to realize the potential of their investments in digital is that their operating models aren't aligned in an optimal fashion. There are many considerations in setting up an optimal model and FROM has consulted with dozens of enterprises around these issues, so we've seen it all.
Should you centralize digital resources into a core "digital team" or distribute those resources to individual business units? If you centralize the resources, how do you ensure they remain connected to what the business really needs? If you distribute them, how do you coordinate their efforts so as to still create a cohesive customer experience? What capabilities make sense to in-source and which to out-source? How can teams such as Marketing and IT work together in the most efficient manner? How should funding decisions be made about new ideas? How should disparate digital channels and touchpoints all be measured in a way that allows "apples to apples" comparison? How should digital teams be structured and managed so as to get the optimal blend of innovation, efficiency, consistency and accountability? And to the degree that the operating model you need is quite different from the one you have now, how do you get from Point A to Point B?
These are just a few of the complex questions that we consult on. None of these have "one size fits all" answers, which is why FROM brings a wide breadth of expertise to bear to help our clients achieve success.
