Case Study: Business Transformation Hits a Roadblock, What do You Do?

By Betsy Burton

Case Study: Business Transformation Hits a Roadblock, What Do You Do?

I’ve been working with a medium-large sized organization for several years. The organization defined a solid business strategy, and actionable plan to reach that business strategy and a clear vision of its future state. Their strategy was to grow their business by entering new regions, offering a set of regional-specific products, and developing local partnerships.

They seemed to have all the future-state-focused pieces in place to make this a successful business transformation. They had obtained needed investment funding. They developed detailed plans, governance, and metrics. They made sure to get local industry and government partners in place. And they were working on defining their business and technology architecture. 

The executives were pleased, and they began to actively communicate and promote their plans to investors, customers, and partners. 

They Hit a Roadblock

It is the worst dream of any business or public sector organization seeking to grow its business. They received early data that one of their planned products was potentially linked to illnesses, and the governments of the regions they were seeking to expand into were seeking to ban the material immediately. 

So, what do you do? 

The Wrong Move

The big mistake this business did was to forge ahead without dealing with the roadblock effectively. The senior executives had become so enamored and personally invested in their future state that it was, in their mind, set in stone. The company was unable or unwilling to go back and revisit its strategy and plans to figure out how it might change its plans to still grow and transform its business. 

Instead, they argued with the findings and studies, even though there were other options for their products. They pushed local regulators and officials to change their positions. And, kept promoting and raising investments for their original plans for another 2 years. 

The issues the company was facing soon became public. And, even given this, some of the senior directors still pushed the original plans, because, by now, they had been selling the vision for so long that they felt like they had staked their reputation on it. 

Future-State Vision Is Not Set in Stone

 If you’ve been reading my research for the past number of years, you know I am a big advocate of defining your future-state vision and using this future-state vision to determine how to move your business forward. It is important because it is the most effective way of ensuring you are making strategic and tactical investment decisions. 

The issue, however, is that your future-state vision must reflect the evolving realities of your current state. In other words, the future-state and current state are interdependent. If your business discovers a significant roadblock in your current state, you must take this opportunity to revisit your future state to determine how it might be changed to respond to, adjust to, and accommodate current-state roadblocks. 

Bottom Line

In the process of transforming business, the likelihood that organizations will hit some roadblocks – either significant or not, is one hundred percent. The important question is what do you do when this happens? Do you cling to your future-state plans to the point that they become potentially destructive? Or do you take the opportunity to rework your business plans and architectures?

To finish this case study, this organization is still muddling along with its original future-state plans. Investors and the public have become frustrated and dismissive of the organization’s plans. Many of the architects who I was working with and saw these issues have left the company. And the company has fallen back to its original (pre-planning) market position and is financially muddling along. 

Focusing on the future-state is critical for investment and architecture planning. But, your future-state plans must be continuously refined, adjusted, and updated to reflect your current realities. 

---

tPaaS- the market that can help drive your digital business transformation!

Sign up for FREE for our LIVE webinar with Betsy!

tPaaS–The Market Required for Digital Business Transformation

Digital business transformation is critically needed by many organizations to effectively compete in this digital world. However, traditional iPaaS services lack the business strategy and architecture tools and advisory services required to transform their business models, and operations.

In this webinar, we highlight what it means to support business transformation, explore our market definition for the Transformation Platform as a Service (tPaaS) market, and identify a cross-section of vendors that are focused on delivering services to support this market. If your organization is looking to enable digital business transformation or seeking the next level of iPaaS support, this webinar is a must attend.

• Why are the needs of business transformation so specific that organizations need a new market of service providers?
• What are the critical capabilities of the tPaaS market?
• Which providers are the leading and lagging providers of tPaaS services?

Register Here