The business leaders of tomorrow are adopting a transformational mindset to serve customers in new ways that are purposeful, sustainable and cost-effective in the post-COVID-19 paradigm. A new paradigm is emerging, and a new transformational mindset is needed to thrive in it.
We are now in unprecedented times with impact of the Covid-19 crisis causing disruption to the global economy on a scale never experienced before. The fall out across all industries could be devastating with lasting effects at least through this decade.
A new (post-COVID-19) paradigm is emerging, driving new operating models to serve customers in ways that are purposeful, sustainable and cost-effective. Businesses must rapidly evolve to a new maturity in how change is planned and executed to succeed in this new world.
Through crises, organisations will need to adapt radically to change and become more resilient. We need to take a step back and re-assess the drivers of strategic change to charter the new uncertainty. Short-term crisis response priorities need to be balanced with longer-term aims to at the very least, preserve customer market share through transformational initiatives.
As we have seen in past crises, this is a fantastic opportunity for organisations to restructure their businesses. The business leaders of tomorrow will use this current time to their advantage by growing market share through digital transformations to serve customers in new ways. This can only be done through an organisation’s adoption of a mature transformational mindset, by reviewing current change portfolios, and identifying core transformations to deliver value. This crisis is driving radical change, with major organisations already acting to reduce overheads/fixed costs, whilst accelerating digitalisation programmes.
What is a transformational mindset, and how does it deliver value?
Robert F Kennedy once said, “Some men see things the way they are and ask why, I see things as they could be and ask why not”.
Features of organisations with a transformational mindset include;
- A radical change mindset that is complexity conscious[1], organised to serve customers in ways that are purposeful, sustainable and cost-effective
- A clear vision of an organisation’s transformational journey, strategic aims and market purpose, communicated effectively and supported by all areas of the business
- Continuous improvement of the organisation’s operational capabilities to deliver market value
- Desire and ambition to enhance the maturity of transformational capability, characterised by a ‘Centre of Excellence’ approach to return on investment, using financial and benefits management tools and techniques.
Look at digital business transformation for example. Covid-19 has suddenly accelerated the urgency in enabling organisations of all kinds to automate operational processes, serve a virtual market and do so, with a dispersed and remote workforce. A transformational mindset has already set some organisations well on their way through ‘complexity conscious’[2] thinking, and the ability to see opportunities, and not be put off by the challenge ahead, creating an environment for transformation within this increasingly complex and dynamic world[3].
Organisations everywhere are now asking themselves these questions:
How do we adopt and pursue this transformational mindset?
Is our transformation portfolio focused on the change we need, for this increasingly complex, post-COVID-19 world?
Where is our capability now in terms of transformational maturity, and where do we need to be?
How do we kick-start and take charge of our transformation portfolio?
How do we get a more predictable ROI from our transformation investment budget?
But how do we answer these questions and succeed on our transformational journey?
For an organisation to adopt a more mature transformational mindset, it has to radically re-imagine how it plans, funds and executes transformational change across the organisation to deliver the more desired level of predictability in outcomes, spend and benefits management.
One of the routes to achieving this is by setting up and embedding a Transformation Centre of Excellence (CoE) with the following objectives:
- Improving the management of transformation programmes across the organisation at a more desired level of predictability and return on investment (ROI)
- Embedding a ‘transformation community’ by bringing the organisation’s programme and change management practice to a higher maturity level through learning and knowledge sharing
- Equipping the transformation programmes with the appropriate financial techniques and tools to support optimal cost-benefit management
To help with this, we have developed a Transformation Centre of Excellence offering that has been pragmatically developed using our transformation delivery experience and industry standards. This offering includes maturity assessments, tools, templates, and trainings to evolve the necessary transformational mindset and continuous improvement of the organisation’s capability maturity.
At the heart sits business case and benefits management, which are key to bringing greater control of ROI of transformation budgets across all types of programmes (including digital, agile, operational efficiency and regulatory). Within this complex, dynamic and interconnected world in which we operate, our transformational delivery experience, spans a variety of industry-standard methodologies in change management, agile delivery and traditional waterfall delivery.
Our coaching and training faculty delivers world-class training and outcomes based on proven neuroscience, making sure that your transformation portfolio delivers impact and creates a positive change in the way people work.
An example client case
We recently worked with a leading Financial Market Infrastructure player to set up and launch a transformation Centre of Excellence, successfully rolling out and driving adoption of the MSP® service offering across all major programmes, a portfolio of over £100m investment. This has delivered a greatly enhanced level of predictability and ROI to outcomes and advanced the maturity level of the organisation’s transformation capability.
Next steps
This Insights Paper will be followed by a series of Blog Posts through Linkedin over the next months, each a slightly more detailed look into some of the high-level points covered in this paper. We will alert you to when each post is about to be made so you don’t miss anything! Please treat each post as an open invitation to challenge, question or support anything we say; tell us what you think and start a conversation.
Our deep domain knowledge and extensive experience have helped numerous financial institutions in their transformation journeys. We’re always up for a chat and will be happy to share insights and ideas from our experiences in the market.
[1] ‘A deep appreciation for the dynamic and interconnected context in which we operate’, see Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan
[2] see Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan
[3] Search for ‘VUCA’ on the web to get more insight on the acronym to explain our current ‘uncontrollable’ world out there…..