By Dan Feely, TSI President and Managing Partner

Digital transformation projects should be straightforward: select a system, implement it, and improve how the business operates. In reality, they often take longer than expected, cost more than planned, and leave leaders wondering, “Why was this so hard?”

After supporting more than 100 major ERP, CRM, and digital transformation initiatives, we’ve seen the same challenges surface again and again. And as organizations increasingly layer in analytics, automation, and AI, the cost of getting the fundamentals wrong only grows.

Specifically in this post, I’ll highlight the top 3 factors that arise that make digital transformation programs and initiatives more of a challenge than they should be.  Also, we’ve shared a few thoughts about what you can do to prevent or mitigate a less than positive situation related to the factors.

The 3 Biggest Blockers to Digital Transformation Success:

1. Lack of a Big Picture Perspective

Many organizations struggle to articulate how people, processes, and systems should work together in the future state.

As Chris Detloff, Director of Transformation at the Archdiocese of Chicago, puts it: “Transformation leaders must take a solution-based approach — people, process, and technology.”

When technology decisions lead the conversation, transformation efforts lose focus and momentum.

Here is a practical move:

• Create a high-level future-state process map before selecting tools
• Define a small set of business-critical outcomes that the transformation must achieve

As AI-enabled tools enter the picture, this clarity becomes even more important. AI should support clearly defined workflows and decisions, not introduce new complexity without purpose.

2. Unclear Process Details. How Will Work Actually Flow?

Having a vision is not enough. Organizations must understand how work is done today and how it needs to change. 

Process mapping clarifies who does what, where automation makes sense, and where inefficiencies exist. Without this foundation, advanced tools, including AI, often accelerate existing problems rather than solve them.

Practical move:

• Map current-state processes before designing future-state solutions
• Use customer or stakeholder experience to inform requirements

Applying automation to poorly understood processes rarely delivers meaningful improvement.

3. Weak Execution Discipline — The Project Doesn’t Run Itself

Transformation initiatives fail when accountability, ownership, and governance are unclear.

As Kerri S. Wagner, President & CEO of PharmChem, notes, complex implementations involve many actors, shifting priorities, and competing demands. Without disciplined project leadership, momentum stalls.

AI-driven initiatives raise the stakes even further, impacting roles, data ownership, and decision rights.

Practical move:

• Assign dedicated project leadership
• Establish clear governance and escalation paths
• Treat change management as a core workstream, not an afterthought

A Reality Check for 2026: Data and Decisions Matter More Than Tools

Most transformation failures are not software failures; they are data and decision failures.

Poor data quality, unclear ownership, and weak governance undermine even the most capable platforms. AI amplifies these weaknesses just as much as it amplifies opportunity.

Final Thought

Digital transformation succeeds when leaders treat it as a business redesign, not a software installation.

Organizations that align vision, process detail, disciplined execution, and data readiness are the ones that realize lasting value.

Want to pressure-test your organization’s readiness? Explore TSI’s free Change Readiness Survey and see where your transformation stands.

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Personally, I agreed with all of those principles and, especially for organizations that needed a different paradigm about doing business, this made perfect sense….at least until a recent conversation I had.

Let me tell you about an experience I had, which highlighted the potential shortcomings of treating your customer like a customer. 

I had a meeting with a doctor (I’ll just refer to him as Bob) that I’ve known for many years and he shared a perspective that impacted my view of this “customer centric” perspective. Now if you are scratching your head that an MD could teach us something about being customer focused, then get behind me in the line for skeptics. Perhaps we’ll save the blog about how the healthcare industry should transform for another day/blog.

So during our conversation, Bob said “yeah, we’ve had consultants come through the hospital telling us that we need to treat our patients more like customers. We shouldn’t simply view them as a queue of work that will always be here or, even worse that we treat them in a manner that indicates how inconvenient it is that they are seeking our services at times that are not always convenient.”

Bob went on to say something that stuck with me.  He said “I became a surgeon so I can heal people. So they can walk out the door in significantly better shape than when they arrived.  For me, if I simply reduced this to a ‘customer relationship’ whereby they have a need, I have a service and they pay me for that services, it completely depersonalizes what we do here. In fact, that defeats why I became a doctor in the first place”.

I reflected on that a bit, especially in the context of some recent articles and books about servant leadership.  Does this mean we now need to treat our customers like a patient?  Or act like doctors?

So much of the time we get consumed with important metrics, that we don’t want to ignore, but this begs the question, how can we think about our organization beyond the typical revenue per customer, average spend, customer loyalty/retention and other measures.  Hmmm, so much to ponder here.

Like you, over the years, I have seen a few trends and see a few more on the horizon and I would like to share a few takeaways:

• Hiring people whose mission and/or personal value system is aligned with that of the organization is the single best action leaders can take so that an organization’s culture and how it operates the majority of the time, is in turn with your most important stakeholders. I’m not an expert in recruiting and assessment best practices, but it would seem that the big challenge is how do we assess this alignment with the candidates we are considering? How do we truly know if a candidate is all talk and no walk?
• I would argue that no amount of training, empowerment, job enrichment or compensation will, with integrity, overtake a disconnect between an individual’s values and the culture an organization is striving to embrace over the long term.
• Those of us that are in the business of providing a service, have a lesson, if not an obligation, to consider. How aligned is our personal mission with that of the service we provide?  Are we providing: consulting, financial planning, legal, educational, insurance, hospitality, health and wellness and other services merely for the money or are we truly in it to get our “customers” to a significantly better place?
• The same standard holds true to anyone providing a product – are you selling the product to meet quotas or is it truly the best solution for the customer’s need? How have you integrated the “voice and needs of the customer” into the continual evolution of the product?
• The patient/customer has an obligation here too. If this relationship truly has integrity, how ready is the patient to follow the treatment protocol? By the way, here is an excellent change readiness survey if you need to assess how ready your organization is to change.

In summary, organizations own the responsibility to create and cultivate an environment where the mission of the organization and the personal mission of its employees are aligned.  Beyond that, enabling employees with the proper processes, policies, technology, analytics, training, reward mechanism and physical environment can only serve to keep an organization thriving.  As you know, this takes time. It takes an intentional focus.  The best time to start this was last year.  Then second best time is now.

Transformation initiatives like this one is a good example of the types of challenges that TSI helps our clients with.  Please reach out to us and let us know how we can assist you or your business.

Written by: Dan Feely, TSI’s President and Founder. For more information on TSI’s expert consultants, visit The TSI Team page.

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Our Love-Hate Relationship with Technology

Technology – most of us continue to have a love-hate relationship with technology. Whether it’s simply your phone that choose to update itself and cancel an important alarm, enterprise technology that does not meet your needs or creates a clumsy user experience, the various components that we rely on rarely seem to be operating in a manner that makes our life easier. 

Regardless of whether you are playing a key role at a growth-oriented corporation or within a thriving university, there is a great chance that when it comes to technology, you may be experiencing one of the following emotions:

1. Frustrated with the Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Systems (ERP), Finance and Accounting, Student Information Systems, Order Management Systems and others that are in place.   And on top of that, you are starting to think about your next move as you are losing confidence in vendors/solutions  ability to meet most of your organization’s needs.
2. Overwhelmed because your organization has acquired many applications over the years. Perhaps the excessive applications were the result of an acquisition. Regardless of the cause, the effect is that there are too many to work with and they do NOT work together.
3. Confused and Stuck as your organization may have implemented a new system in the last 5 years, give or take, but for some reason, your organization is NOT that efficient. You still rely heavily on spreadsheets and information resides in quite a few locations.
4. Cautiously Optimistic with Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Enterprise Systems (ERP), Finance and Accounting, Student Information Systems, Order Management Systems and others that are in the process of being implemented. You feel the process and participation has been effective and you are holding out hope that when it comes time to “go live”, you can realize the benefits that have been anticipated.
5. Excited with the new system; it is up and running and you are seeing the value already.
6. Let Down with the new system. You have “gone live” and it’s not what was promised.  The results are very disappointing.

Take Action to Take Control

As context, during any given year, Transforming Solutions is involved with a few dozen projects that surround mapping processes, defining requirements, creating use cases, assembling business requirement documents (BRDs), performing software evaluations and selections, reviewing software and services contacts, assessing complex technology portfolios and application architectures.  We have been assisting our clients in these areas for over 20 years.  It the risk of sounding boastful, we evaluate more technology in a year than most professionals do in their career.

The purpose of this blog is to share a few best practices and trends that we see (or in some cases, don’t see), in the hopes that you can take control of your situation and drive greater alignment, efficiency and quality to create a better user experience and realize the intended benefits.

Here are the Top 5 Actions that frequently get discussed but rarely get executed properly.

1. Using Process as a Differentiator – Surprisingly, we still see few organizations map out their processes and think about how they want their processes to work. I know, I know- this is basic, but few dive into the important detail and think through how the underlying technology should make that process come to life in the most efficient and effective manner possible.

There have been numerous, well-circulated white papers and case studies, yet this shortcoming persists.  Of course, this task takes time and discipline.  But as we say, “an ounce of process design is worth a pound of implementation”.  Organizations that invest in spending a handful of hours doing this activity realize a payoff in having a cleaner, more aligned process and application design.

2. Define a Business Case and Follow up the Expected Benefits – it seems that most frequently, organizations estimate costs to acquire software and implement the various products that are associated with that implementation. Based on our experience, more time is spent on the cost estimation side than the potential benefits.  The reason costs, rather than benefits, are an area of emphasis is logical – costs will be defined and included in a contract, benefits will not.  Benefits are harder to estimate, and, in many areas, they are “squishy” – hard to nail down and quantify.  There is an overall reluctance to define these, for the natural fear of senior executives wanting these benefits to be guaranteed.

From Transforming Solution’s perspective, as hard as the task of estimating benefits is, it is one that, without turning it into an incredibly time-consuming process, is essential. At least categorically, we need to define answers to these questions below.

1. 1. How do you envision the processes should become more efficient?
   2. How will quality and/or accuracy improve?
   3. How can speed or response time get better?
   4. How will the lives of prospective customers, customers, other constituents and employees improve?
   5. Will costs go down?
   6. What legacy systems can we retire?
   7. How will the new system help us scale?
   8. What other benefits (e.g., increased revenue) are fair to expect?

The primary reason for this centers on the need to have a clear “definition of success”. When we do that, after the implementation is completed and the users have overcome the natural learning curve, we can revisit these questions to assess how successful we were.

3. Establish a Partnership with the Primary Vendors – A great implementation is a function of many factors, not the least of which is the role played by the primary vendor or vendors who provide and implement the software. Many of the successful implementations we see and, at times are part of, have a fair agreement that covers expectations (at times in the form of a service level agreement) in many areas.

Here are a few questions that often get missed:

• • When will vendors and project participants be onsite?
  • How detailed are the requirements and what is the format of the BRD?
  • Is this oriented on the current or the future state of the processes and organization?
  • Who from the client will arbitrate differences in direction and requirements that naturally exist between different key stakeholders? How quickly will these issues get resolved and what latitude do you give the vendors with respect to deadlines and milestones?
  • Who is taking the lead for data conversion? What and how is this occurring?
  • How will turnover, both for the client and the vendor, be handled?

4. Leverage the process work in Design Sessions, Training and the Business Case and as part of Organizational Change Management (OCM) – Well-documented future state process work can be an important asset for months and years to come. We are seeing (and recommending) this documentation be used as an important input to design sessions and to help set the context for training sessions.  Utilizing BOTH the process work and answers to the eight questions above within training and as part of the OCM plan (addressing the “what’s in it for me”) is incredibly important to answer the natural “why should we do it this way” questions that will arise.

5. Treat the Project with the same energy and enthusiasm as a major new product, service or division launch – So often, when folks start talking about assembling a team for an effort to support a major system replacement, it parallels the impending fatigue similar to a journey around the world….on a mule…while dragging an anvil…through the desert. You get the picture.  People are NOT leaping for joy – especially those that have been through a similar project that has gone awry.

Instead, what if we treated this type of project with care and intent, like one planning the launch of an exciting new product?  We almost NEVER see this, but slowly, with some progressive organizations, we are starting to see a shift in their mindset. Taking a “launch” mindset can have a major impact on the OCM culture and mindset along with the entire project approach.

Give us Feedback, please

We would love to hear your comments.  What do you experience in this area?   What “best practices” have you seen?  Please contact us and let us know.

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In recent years, technologically savvy organizations have relied on Social Media to identify and secure business.  It’s a component of both our personal and professional lives, and certainly one that we can’t live without (in fact, it’s hard to believe that 19 years ago, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube did not even exist).  Based on TSI’s work in developing and implementing sound customer, market, and business-driven IT Strategies within the most progressive, fast-growing companies, we submit the following 7 reasons why your organization should develop /enhance Social Media tools to get closer to your customers, drive revenue, and manage the customer experience both inside and outside your organization: 

1.  Social Media isn’t Just “Social.”

Businesses invest in social media tools because they presume that they have to or believe that social media presents them with a decided tactical advantage. The more followers or “likes” another company has, the more we, as leaders, feel that we need to aspire to a new standard of social media success. While Twitter and Facebook may be surefire ways to attract customer visibility, visibility is only half of the equation; in fact, much must be done before your organization’s use of Social Media becomes – well, “social.” Getting those customers to connect with your business, engage with your thought leadership, and adapt to market conditions and trends requires tremendous effort in understanding your customers’ level of engagement with you. A critical first step to creating a social relationship is to form a complete understanding of the Customer Experience (CX) that your customers have with your company, product, or service offering.

2. Your Competition is Using Social Media on Your Customers.

As if connecting and engaging with customers needed to be more daunting, your competition is engaging with social media and possibly better than you! Gone are the days when you could be a trailblazer by using Twitter or blogs to identify and drive business. Companies in touch with recent trends already have these tools built into daily communication and tactical approaches to secure business. You may not be as hooked as Jay Baer (note his podcast series “The Social Pros” https://www.convinceandconvert.com/podcasts/shows/social-pros-podcast ), but that should not be an excuse not to keep up with your competition’s use of social media to secure business. Understanding the dynamic, shifting nature of both your customers and your competitors will help lay the foundation for an effective social media strategy, which will hopefully result in our (essential) #3:

3. Social Media Drives Measurable Business, but How do you measure it?

You probably noticed that social media usage increased during the Covid 19 Pandemic, and this caused many successful companies to shift their marketing priorities from the established traditional methods to social media and relationship-building with consumers. Since this, Businesses have started increasingly investing more money into digital marketing efforts and have seen an increased return on their investments, with the amount invested expected to grow this year to over 1.3 billion, according to Statista (2023). However, determining the success and/or ROI can be tricky, with many factors and calculations that must be considered. Some factors that must be regarded to determine success include specific goals, growth, and sales from particular marketing efforts (see post https://business.adobe.com/blog/basics/understanding-roi-in-digital-marketing for more details). Depending on your company’s specific objectives, you would then select the metrics that help measure the corresponding goal. For some, ROI may not be the most critical metric. Instead, awareness and brand building may be the main goal for a specified campaign.

4. Social Media Can Provide Metrics and Feedback, Help you Tailor your Service / Product, and Generate More Business by building relationships.

Tailoring your Social Media tools to perform what Ted Rubin calls “The return on Relationship” (see his post “About return on Relationship” https://www.ror.online/about-return-on-relationship ) can help you customize your offerings to make them more attractive to potential/existing customers. Enhancing the relationship increases the level of “engagement” with that customer, fostering their loyalty to you and your offerings. Ted explains, “Be it via valuable information or personal introductions, engagement, and interaction will remain key. By asking questions and proposing ideas, you can engage your followers in such a way as to give them the ability and reason to respond.”

5. Social Media is an Effective tool for Develop Branding.

Just as enhancing an experience with a customer can foster loyalty and drive new business, Social Media marketing can be an intelligent way to create a recognizable identity for your product or service. Creating activity around contacting current or prospective customers can facilitate defining and circulating product or service branding.

6. The importance of choosing the right social media channel

By now, you realize the importance of having and maintaining a social media presence, but it is important to note that not all channels are suitable for all businesses. Knowing and understanding your target audience and goals are the keys to choosing the proper social media channels. For example, while LinkedIn is an excellent option for targeting career-minded professionals, Instagram is much more suited for targeting Gen Z with features like filters, reels, and stories. Understanding your target market and selecting the proper channels can lead to more significant profits and greater brand awareness; both are keys to overall success.

7. Have you heard of Programmatic digital marketing?

Chances are your competitors have and are harnessing it to find and target potential customers. In short Programmatic digital marketing is using software to buy digital advertising. For example, a higher ed institution could harness the power of programmatic digital marketing to place ads on the televisions of the parents of potential students from particular feeder schools while they tune into their favorite shows. For a more in-depth explanation, look at Brook Osmundson’s Post “What is Programmatic Advertising? How Does it Work? (https://www.searchenginejournal.com/what-is-programmatic-advertising/462655/#close )

Based on the seven points above, social media is not just a job you give to interns anymore. In some ways, your company’s Social Media strategy should be just as important as your company’s overall corporate strategy. Both are means by which your organization chooses its overall intent in response to the opportunities and threats in the marketplace; both will guide how the company considers its internal strengths and weaknesses, and both will connect your internal and external stakeholders.

TSI is a leading performance improvement, process re-engineering, technology strategy, and change management consulting firm. We help our progressive, growth-oriented clients become more efficient, cost-effective, and customer-focused. In short, we help our clients grow BETTER.

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“Readiness” for change is rarely looked at, yet is one of the most important critical success factors for a project’s successful completion. How ready is YOUR organization for change? Do you often wonder if your organization can really do it? Does your organization have the skills, capacity, expertise, and “grit” to change? How Has the Pandemic era Affected Your Organization?

Numerous studies, including several published in The Harvard Business Review, CIO Magazine, and others, cite the challenges and risks associated with organizational change. The more transformative the change is intended to be, the riskier it is to make this change come to life.

TSI has seen changes in recent years that are a direct result of the pandemic and the aftermath in several areas.

Most notably with key employees getting more work thrown at them, and in some cases, with fewer resources to complete these mission-critical projects. We’ve seen a shift in financial resources move toward securing the technology infrastructure, and, in some cases, that has depleted funding for other critical revenue-generating projects. These studies and the recent pandemic era confirm that organizations desiring to implement sustainable change must first have an environment that is suitable for such change; without these factors in place, let’s just say the odds are not in your favor. Several factors are essential to creating an environment where the correct change and the proper pace can thrive.

One of the most frequently missed opportunities for project success is taking a few minutes before embarking on that project to assess how ready, capable, and aligned your organization is to take on this project. What makes this small task even more important are the trends that have resulted in recent years, including quiet quitting, working remotely, spikes in turnover, along with fears of layoffs and a recession.

When you mix all those ingredients together, even the most stable culture is going to have some challenges.

Click here to rate your organization on the most important Organizational Change Readiness criteria and see the results immediately online.  See how others in your organization view your situation and pass this on to others.

As well, if you wish to discuss upcoming project needs, please give us a call at 847.705-0960 x202 or e-mail tsi@transforming.com.

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By Dan Feely, TSI President and Managing Partner

Last month, I had an opportunity to go to the great city of Duluth, Minnesota to watch my favorite first daughter (not to be confused with my favorite 2nd or 3rd daughter) run her first marathon (shout out to Grandma’s Marathon). It was everything you would imagine a marathon to be – inspirational, motivational, emotional, and more.

After bouncing around to different marathon locations, the marathon app indicated our runner was nearing the last mile. So, we jockeyed for position in an area about 400 yards from the finish line hoping we could get a picture of and watch our favorite participant finish.

As we waited, we saw runners who were jubilant, fatigued and everywhere in between those extremes. Most, if not all runners, had their eyes fixed on the balloons marking the finish line that they’ve been dreaming about for the previous 26 miles. It was obvious that most, if not all, were using every bit of fuel they had left in their tank.

We spotted one runner, a guy who did not look well. I mean really unwell. His legs looked like they were made of rubber, and he was increasingly losing his balance with every step he took. Then he crashed. Literally, his legs gave out and he face planted on the pavement.

He did not look like he could get up, nor were any race volunteers in the area to attend to him.

Then, out of nowhere, two runners grabbed and lifted him up. One runner on each side, they grabbed his arms and lifted, dragged and pulled him along. They basically carried him the entire rest of the race.

I watched the entire thing. There were no introductions, no asking “do you need help”. Based on how quickly they jumped into action, I’m confident they didn’t talk about politics as a prerequisite to make sure they were aligned on volatile topics.

They simply helped a fellow human.

I have no idea whether these two competitors who helped this man were striving for a personal best, or simply striving to complete their first marathon. Regardless, I’m sure their stopping added several minutes to their time. With the finish line in sight, they very easily could have just run around him.

But they didn’t. They just did the right thing and sacrificed minutes on their time to do so.

Remarkable.

This event got me thinking about how divided so many of our communities, including our places of employment, are today.

But in a few easy steps, we can create a culture that rises above the rhetoric and divisiveness that it is so easy to get pulled in to.

1. Focus on what you have in common (i.e., common goals, perhaps a few shared values) with your team.
2. Pay no attention to the stuff that you don’t have in common.
3. Just help, add some value, bring something to the table, be a good team member.

The rest will take care of itself.

What perspectives can you add to this?  We’d love to hear from you and your digital transformation experiences.

Looking for more on culture? Go here and here

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By Dan Feely, TSI President and Managing Partner

Maybe you are like I am and periodically embark on some home renovation project.  And, like most projects, they take longer, cost more, while leaving you with a feeling like “this should have been easier”, when you look back at the contributing factors for the delays and cost overruns.  There are a lot of similarities with a home renovation project and a major system implementation.  But since home renovation is not my business, I don’t profess to have all the answers there.  However, when it comes to digital transformation and ERP, CRM, and other major system implementations, I have a lot more expertise to draw from.  Here we will share some knowledge and experience we’ve gained while being involved with well over 100 major digital transformation and systems implementation projects collectively.

Specifically in this post, I’ll highlight the top 3 factors that arise that make digital transformation programs and initiatives more of a challenge than they should be.  Also, we’ve shared a few thoughts about what you can do to prevent or mitigate a less than positive situation related to the factors.

3 Top Blockers that Impede Digital Transformation Efforts:

1. Lack of a “Big Picture” Perspective
2. Not Having a Handle on Critical Details – How Will the Work Flow?
3. The Project Does NOT just Happen

First, let’s draw a distinction between the two typical approaches organizations take with systems implementations:

1. Focus simply on replacing an old system with a new one (also known as “lift and shift”).  This is a bare bones approach with most of the focus being put on the technology replacement and little to no attention to transforming the business, changing processes or roles.  While this may seem like the quick, easy, and cost-effective way to improve, we believe that there is no such thing as the easy button in digital transformation. There will always be data and setup challenges (just like our renovation example above) and preparing for them may be the difference between success and failure. TSI typically does not endorse this approach, but there are circumstances when this is warranted. The infographic at right highlights the most pervasive challenges that haunt lift and shift types of projects.
2. Digital transformation using the new system as a catalyst to change how the organization operates.  This approach will do a much better job in ensuring maximum value is extracted from the technology investment and has potential to significantly improve the organization. However, there is still complexity and risks to be aware of. Due to the number of “moving parts”, organizational change risks and other factors, this article is focused on this scenario and how to mitigate those risks. 

Below are some of the top reasons (in addition to those just listed) that make it challenging for a digital transformation project and pragmatic tips to address these challenges.

1. Lack of a “Big Picture” Perspective: Don’t have an understanding of how the systems, processes and people will work in the “new environment”. 

Chris Detloff, a very experienced veteran of many ERP implementations and the Director of Transformation for the Archdiocese of Chicago, has this to say, “In today’s historic era of accelerating market and technology disruptions that impact our lives in every way, transformation leaders must take a solution-based approach to transformation to be successful. Unfortunately, many transformation initiatives fail for the following reasons:

• Leading with technology instead of a solution-based approach (people, process, and technology)
• Lacking an agile, flexible, and collaborative operating model with well-established capabilities for their organization
• Partnering with professionals who lack proven transformation experience.”

Chris has been one of the most visionary leaders that TSI has worked with, and we echo his thoughts.  One way to put this into practice is by starting with a high-level context level process map that gives some clarity with respect to the project scope (see simple example below), the technology that is needed, even if the technology will get acquired and implemented a piece at a time.

In addition to this overview map, we also need to define the key “use cases” and supporting business case that articulates the stakeholder’s expected benefits associated with the transformation effort.  This perspective needs to be kept as a central theme during the project to help maintain focus and keep the project aimed toward a finite set of specific targets.

2. Not Having a Handle on Critical Details – How Will the Work Flow?

In addition to the “big picture” perspective mentioned above, an organization needs to have a solid understanding how the key processes (and key scenarios) will work.  Have you thought about your desired customer experience and used that perspective to inform your processes and key requirements?  If not, you have a little more work today. 

To start working toward an ideal future state operating model that leverages functional technology and makes you more efficient, it is imperative to start by mapping out the current state processes. Conducting business process mapping and improvement sessions help bring clarity to a process, including who is involved, whether activities are manual or automated, and necessary action to improve efficiencies. Business process mapping is a forward-thinking action aimed to understand what is happening now in a process, why it is happening, and what is desired to happen in the future. Below is a sample template of a business process map.

3. The Project Does NOT Just Happen

Kerri S. Wagner President & CEO, PharmChem, Inc. has this to say as she and her organization recently implemented a cloud-based ERP, “System implementations are harder than they should be because there are so many actors involved. Action items can get pushed back for weeks at a time due to employee shifting and job changes, and sometimes project knowledge isn’t transferred effectively, so the scoping must begin again. It can be frustrating when the system doesn’t end up doing what it was scoped to do without several months of specialized and costly development.  These frustrations can be eased if a company assigns a dedicated project manager to oversee all the moving parts. If one is not on staff, hiring an outside consultant will ease the pain and ensure the project gets over the finish line.”

According to John Bosshart, Chief Accounting Officer at OneSpan Inc. in Chicago, “Change management and upgrading systems are more difficult than people first realize.  Not only does your team have their day jobs but also need to carry out critical analysis, testing, and new sox controls with these new systems.  These are exciting projects but can also be extremely stressful on everyone in the project.”

Use These Factors to Direct Your Success

Just like that remodeling project I mentioned earlier, even if you are not a skilled worker that is transforming a facility or building out the new space, it takes time (usually more than you’d expect) to articulate what you want, what you think you need, design the solution, oversee how the development is coming along, keep your needs in line with what you originally asked for, provide timely feedback and finally, when the time is right, move into the new space.  

New systems and digital transformation projects are no different.  Being attentive, responsive, and present during a project like this, AND doing your day job well is extremely hard to do.

While there is a myriad of hurdles, with the right focus and assistance, please know that you can get over all of these.  Your project does not need to be another statistic on the log of failed or significantly underdelivered projects. Use this information as an input to your approach.  And if you are feeling extra resourceful, check out a tool that many of our clients have found to be useful.  The tool, beyond the insights above that may help, is TSI’s Change Readiness Survey (free for your use), to help assess whether your organizational change management factors are aligned.

Take this individually or share it with your team.  Take it, compare scores, and see if your organization is ready to embark on a major change effort, such as a digital transformation or even a “lift and shift” from an old to a new system.  

What perspectives can you add to this?  We’d love to hear from you and your digital transformation experiences.

The post The Challenges of Digital Transformation appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

2020 showed us that those organizations that have not properly addressed their technology and digital infrastructure paid a significantly larger price when the pandemic hit than those that did invest and successfully shore up their infrastructure.  But we can’t stop there.  In 2021, organizations of all sizes and industries need to continue to rethink how they execute their business strategy in this age of digital transformation.  This should start with how an organization delivers products and services to how it interacts with its customers to how it keeps its customers engaged with the context of key scenarios that may be likely in the months ahead.

Organizations cannot simply claim to be digitally transformed simply by adopting new technologies or business applications. Technology is only a channel, the true value lies in leveraging it to empower ones’ workforce by streamlining processes and increasing visibility for informed decision making. Just as how social media is a channel in which there are various aspects which determine the growth of a channels subscription or views on a video in the same way but in a broader sense technology gives us the liberty to grow our organization but we must know how to aptly use it for us to make the best use of it.

IoT, Big Data, Analytics, Business Intelligence, Cloud, Social Media integration and Mobile are few of the many capabilities organizations today are pursuing in a digitized ecosystem. Simply stated, these capabilities can be achieved via implementing extensions and point solutions on top of traditional Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems or it may require a more extensive and encompassing change.

Executives today have a wide variety of enterprise applications to choose from, often putting them at risk of making wrong choices in a time-sensitive environment. New entrants, who are looking for enterprise applications for the first time can easily fall into the trap of building an application portfolio that is a conglomeration of best-of-breed applications, or picking an all-in-one ERP solution. Incumbents often get overwhelmed by choices they have to make in terms of moving to the cloud or staying on-premise, and how they can upgrade their existing technology stack to meet digital transformation initiatives.

In a near real-time decision making setup of technology landscaping projects, the default starting point tends to be magic quadrants or other research articles that provide analysis of the top players in a particular industry or functional area. Decision makers fail to pay attention to the obvious basis of these research artifacts; though the information provided is authentic to a degree, the criteria for evaluation are generic. The majority of these research artifacts evaluate software based on generic criteria such as – vendor’s customer base, geographical spread, new customer acquisition, common industry business processes to name a few.

Organizations blindly following these research articles as their Bible, fail to realize that a generic evaluation is not sufficient to substantiate a software’s fit to their organization. Technology solutions should supplement or complement ones’ business objectives. Just by choosing a prominent solution, one cannot claim to be prepared for thriving in a digitized ecosystem.

To avoid common pitfalls, organizations should establish a framework for their technology landscape that is driven by their “business strategy” as well as their technology strategy. This becomes mission critical when one thinks of the speed of technological change in any given industry. Frameworks would help executives establish a methodology to frequently evaluate their organization’s technology landscape against business objectives. Hence, allowing organizations to keep up with technologies driving transformation without losing sight of its relevance to business strategies.

TSI’s consultants bring experience from helping our clients evaluate or reevaluate and redesign their technology roadmaps. With deep understanding of client’s industry, technology trends and business goals, we can help you –

• Carefully think through and clarify your business strategy – in 2021 – what is YOUR unfair advantage?
• Think through important scenarios that may be forthcoming and consider the “impact analysis”
• Outline a relevant, scalable and business strategy driven technology landscape
• Plan a thoughtful and pragmatic implementation based on what your organization can and should take on
• Design and foster a culture that would allow you to adapt to digital transformation capabilities

Contact TSI to discuss your digital transformation strategies or if you need assistance in strategizing one.

The post Assessing your Technology Landscape in 2021 to Transform Digitally and Organizationally appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

Written by: Alan Baxter

There have been countless articles written about Big Data.  In fact, I don’t believe a day has gone by where I haven’t seen someone’s perspective on Big Data and how it’s going to “change the world” as we know it today.  But do you ever feel like this emphasis on Big Data is like walking into a movie in the middle, being heightened by its climax, yet lacking a true foundational understanding of the plot?

The purpose of this, is to do exactly that.  I’m going to break down the fundamentals Big Data analytics into an article you can read in under 3 minutes.

Simply put, information is the foundation for how decisions are made in today’s business.  As a matter of fact, it has been the foundation for how decisions have been made for years.  However, in the past it was only the elite organizations that could get on the forefront of their data and use it to drive the business.   In 2016, it’s a whole new ballgame; from a technology trend standpoint, there is nothing bigger than Big Data.

In fact, with the highly anticipated migration to the IoT (Internet of Things), the advancement of data collection and data manipulation tools, and the influx of self-service BI software, we are continually becoming more and more advanced in our analytical capabilities.  Readily available technology solutions have provided the means to turn millions of lines of unstructured data into real, business driven results quicker and more accurately than ever before.  Today’s most successful business at all sizes are learning to master their Big Data capabilities.  Big Data driven businesses can be intrusive in industries like hospitality, where Airbnb ($30B) is worth about 30 percent more than the world’s biggest hotel company, Hilton.  How does your business address Big Data?

Through proven methodology and highly experienced consultants, TSI covers the spectrum, helping organizations uncover analytics solutions using the fundamental combination of:

1. Prescriptive: Prescriptive analytics is one of the most powerful analytics methods.  Yet, according to Gartner only 3% of businesses use this method
   (while 13% of businesses use predictive analytics).  Prescriptive analytics reveals suggestions/recommendations based on collected data, indicating what actions should be    For example, Manufacturing Company XYZ has been experiencing monthly fluctuations in its bottom-line and suspects it has to do with raw material price volatility from various vendors.  Prescriptive analytics will help the company identify raw materials with the highest volatility and provide various suggestions/recommendations; e.g., the most cost effective month to buy, best vendors to use with least price volatility, etc.

2. Predictive: More common that prescriptive, predictive analytics provides analysis (or forecasts) of likely scenarios of what might happen based on historical data.  For example, predictive analytics can be used with CRM data throughout the lead to sale-execution process of an organization. This analysis provides the ability to predict the probability of a lead turning into a sales order based on a vast array of data points captured in the CRM.

3. Diagnostic: Diagnostic analytics involves looking at past performance (data sets) and determining what happened and why.  Deliverables usually consist of metrics presented in a dashboard fashion.  For example, Retail Company ABC released a large internet marketing campaign last month that increased sales by 20% from the previous month.  The company can use diagnostic analytics to present the campaigns success factors by analyzing data points; e.g., # of clicks, time on the page, # of shares, etc.

4. Descriptive: Descriptive analytics is most commonly used to provide real-time analysis based on real-time data. For example, major hotel chains use descriptive analytics to understand a particular sites guest room availability in real-time.

It’s time to take action and get ahead of the curve when it comes to Big Data and Data Analytics.  TSI can help with the following:

1. Assess where your organization truly is and see what immediate improvements might be close at hand
2. Define your short and long term data analytics needs (and define what business case is associated with this)
3. Suggest and implement data analytics solutions that will move you from a descriptive to a prescriptive organization.

As per all of our engagements, TSI’s knowledgeable and personable consultants will not only collaboratively define what actions need to take place, but they’ll help your organization understand “Why?” while guiding you through the finish line.   Please  contact TSI to get started on your project or to brainstorm ideas with one of TSI’s experienced consultants.

The post Get Ahead of the Curve with Big Data appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..

A traditional approach to building operating budgets involves taking the prior year spend and adjusting it for inflation. Although easier to implement than other budgeting models, the traditional approach builds in and compounds inefficiencies, grows the expense base over time and doesn’t encourage managers to explore ways to reduce costs via innovation and technology. ZBB requires managers of cost centers to justify budgets from scratch and support their budgets with Decision Packages that analyze, prioritize and rank all activities and operations within their organization and highlight areas of opportunity to innovate and apply technology to automate and streamline the business.

To effectively implement ZBB, managers can leverage Process Improvement frameworks to provide relevant information on their departmental activities, outputs produced, resources consumed, service levels provided to customers and manual steps ripe for technology enablement. The need for process-based information, metrics and cost drivers is where Process Improvement really shakes hands with ZBB.

At a high-level, Process Improvement enabled ZBB involves the following nine steps:

1. Identify the organization’s core mission/strategy and evaluate gaps between current execution and the level of execution required to serve customers and excel in chosen markets.
2. Set-up or tap into an existing enterprise-wide Process Improvement architecture.
3. Identify cost centers and all processes/activities related to each cost center.
4. Analyze time spent by personnel in each cost center (processes/activities supported and outputs produced).
5. Prepare Decision Packages for each cost center (includes justification for cost center, how current funding level supports the current strategic plan, and what budget adjustments would be necessary if the cost center was eliminated or restructured to change its mix of activities).
6. Prioritize and rank Decision Packages.
7. Reallocate resources to support the core mission/strategy and realize potential cost savings.
8. Integrate results of the ZBB exercise with the annual budgeting process, process improvement and portfolio management activities.
9. Track, measure and validate targeted cost reductions and launch the next cycle of improvement.

ZBB and Process improvement can drive major cost savings and ROI. Successful implementation requires effective organizational change management and trust at all levels of the organization. It is especially important for outsiders to an organization to review costs in an objective, non-political manner. In the end, companies that do it well will reap major competitive advantages and rewards and the CFO and Finance Team will be regarded as nothing less than magical for creating value from Zero.

To learn more about transforming your business, contact TSI. 

The post Creating Value from ZERO…. Nine Steps for Finance to Enable Real Cost Reduction (AKA Zero-Based Budgeting Best Practices) appeared first on Transforming Solutions Inc..