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..

Transforming Solutions, Inc. (TSI) was engaged by a top 10 public research university with a medical center to assist with technology transformation efforts for University Advancement to develop a comprehensive understanding of the current state of the technology infrastructure and use this information as a basis to inform the evaluation and selection of a new CRM system. As a foundation for this work, TSI was asked to spearhead a CRM software selection effort. These efforts were managed by the Assistant Vice President for Strategy and Operations for the Foundation. TSI has served as a transformation partner throughout the project lifecycle, including the execution of an IT needs assessment, change readiness assessment, business case development, organizational change management, requirements gathering, development of an RFP, system identification and selection, and business processes improvement training and execution.

TSI has frequently engaged in similar software evaluation and selection projects, and we aim to gather data to capture answers to the following questions:

• What technology is in place and used (and by whom) to perform various activities?
• How effective is this technology? 
• What gaps or opportunities exist to streamline processes and increase ROI? 
• Are there areas where the existing applications or resources can provide more value by being upgraded or by investing additional resources in training efforts?
• Are there risks that are apparent in the current inventory of technology?
• What is the “customer experience” or “constituent experience” as a function of the current processes? 
• What future state options should be considered moving forward?
• What platforms may be feasible alternatives to meet the defined functional and technical requirements?

TSI’s Approach and Role

Approach

Process Improvement Sessions

The software selection project provided a relevant platform for which to conduct business process improvement sessions with the cohort of practitioners. This cohort of documentors and facilitators conducted business process improvement sessions in functional areas related to Advancement including Gift Processing, Prospect Management and Research, Annual Giving and Membership, Finance and Accounting, Donor Relations, among many others. The facilitation teams actively engaged with stakeholders by asking reflective questions, identifying opportunities for improvement and areas of risk, and developing recommended action plans based on current and future state maps.  

An integral part of any software evaluation and selection project is the identification of functional requirements for a new CRM system. BPI sessions provide a platform to collect requirements.

Constituent Experience and Voice of the Customer Sessions

The University requested that TSI conduct a series of constituent experience sessions to assess change readiness and capture the unique needs of the employees and stakeholders to inform the evaluation and selection of a new CRM system. In order to assess readiness for change and capture the unique needs of the constituents and their needs and desires for a new CRM system, TSI team members partnered with the stakeholders to document and facilitate Constituent Experience and Voice of the Customer Sessions. The cohort of practitioners were trained in the facilitation and documentation of these sessions, whereby they collected points of pride, pain points, areas of opportunity, envisioned the future state, and gathered requirements for a new software system. 

Requirements Gathering

TSI facilitated and documented requirements gathering sessions as a part of the Constituent Experience and Voice of the Customer sessions by answering the following prompt: “In the desired future state, I need the ability to…”. Throughout the requirements gathering process, it became clear that while functional areas had requirements that were unique to their job responsibilities, there were also requirements that transcended throughout all areas. Some of these included flexible reporting functionality, customizable homepage dashboards, and in-system notifications. These requirements gathering sessions resulted in 1,215 unique requirements for desired functionality that were then divided amongst the project’s eight Lots:

• Lot 1 Core CRM
• Lot 2 Integrations
• Lot 3 Communities & Portals
• Lot 4 Online Giving
• Lot 5 Event Management
• Lot 6 Digital Marketing
• Lot 7 Data Catalog
• Lot 8 Implementation Services

Role

TSI facilitated all sessions during this engagement, including requirements gathering sessions, constituent experience, business process mapping, vendor demonstrations and training sessions, stakeholder training, reference checking calls, among many others. TSI also led the analysis of various scoring and evaluation factors, including:

• Functional and User Experience Scoring
• Technical Scoring
• Vendor Viability
• Reference Checking
• Total Cost of Ownership, Transition, and Support
• Cultural fit

At the end of the selection process, TSI developed a set of pre-final recommendations and analysis in collaboration with the project team. This iterative process culminated in a comprehensive final report that incorporated stakeholder feedback and data from the entire project. 

Results

The project team and TSI were intentional about collecting metrics to track progress toward goals in learning, process, and strategy. Some of this data included:

• 13 practitioners received in-depth training on business requirements and requirements gathering methods
• 56 processes were mapped and analyzed (current state, analysis, and future state) with TSI, practitioners, and stakeholders
• 176 total processes have been mapped as a result of BPI training efforts
• 40 current state, analysis, and future state process sessions held to capture existing and forward thinking processes and define requirements
• 20 requirements gathering, constituent experience, and voice of the customer sessions with functional area stakeholders
• 1,215 requirements were gathered as a result of BPI and Constituent Experience sessions, which will inform the selection of a new CRM system
• Metric tracking was established to monitor total numbers of: pain points, opportunities for improvement, technical and functional requirements, participating stakeholders, processes, and sessions held

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