Rip it up and start again

Business Transformation is a hot subject right now.  Boardrooms are buzzing with the latest idea for how to change their business to reduce the bottom line, grow the top line, eliminate waste, increase efficiency, grow deeper relationships with customers.  Chief Executives look at their competitors with a jealous eye, thinking how they can implement the industry best practice used by their competitors into their organisation.  They believe that others are doing things better than they are... and do you know what?  They're right.

Transformation (noun): a marked change in form, nature, or appearance.

For any organisation that is planning a business transformation programme, understanding the meaning of transformation is a good start.  Changing the paperclip supplier won't deliver a marked change - even if you're a stationery shop.  Transformations are big, they're important, they often require big investment and they often fail!

Audaces fortuna iuvat - Fortune Favours the Bold

Business Transformation programmes are by their very nature a risk for any organisation to undertake.  Did I mention that they often fail?  Well they do.  Often.  Fail.  Those that do fail usually have one or more of the following characteristics:

• They don't set out with a clear strategy for change
• They don't set out with a clear vision for the future
• They don't have a champion to drive the change through
• They don't have board level support
• They don't consider the people impact
• They don't have support of their people
• They don't have a customer strategy
• They don't have customer advocacy
• They don't see it through
• They don't prevent backfill of old ways

So lets pick these off, two at a time.

Strategy and Vision
Firstly, you need to be clear on why you're setting out on your transformation journey.  "We'd like to be the uber of..." isn't a great reason for risking the future of your business.  If you can't clearly articulate what you want to transform, why you want to transform it, where the transformation will take you, when you'll complete and realise the benefits and how you'll achieve it then stop.  Don't go any further.  It will only end badly.

Champion with board level support
If you get as far as agreeing your strategy and vision, the next thing that you need is a champion.  This is the person who will be carried around aloft when the transformation is successful.  This is the saviour of your organisation.  Treat them as such.  They need the support and authority of the entire organisation.  If they don't sit on your board, make a space for them.  They need to have equal respect from above and below.  They must be a champion in every sense of the word.  If you don't have someone to fulfil this role, who will be there from the start to the very end, then stop.  Don't go any further.  It will only end badly.

It's all about people
With a champion in place, you can then go ahead and look at the people impacts.  If the result of your transformation means that you'll have a smaller workforce or day to day roles will change you need to deal with this upfront.  Don't make promises you can't keep, don't mislead and don't ignore the feelings of others.  This is the most disruptive part of your transformation.  Expect it.  Manage it.  Deal with it.  Without the support of the workforce you can't implement effective change.  If you haven't dealt with this head on, then stop.  Don't go any further.  It will only end badly.

Customer strategy and advocacy
A engaged and supportive internal people plan in place then allows you to look outwards to your customers.  You can have the most efficient processes in the world, though if your customers no longer want to buy your product you won't last long.  Your customer strategy needs to clearly align to your transformation strategy.  Do you expect disruption?  Will things get worse before they get better?  Having someone to represent the voice of the customer at every meeting, there for every decision and making sure that they're listened to as the voice of many is vital.  The voice of your customer needs to be just that - they need to get insight, they need to go and test with focus groups.  If you don't have advocacy from your customers for your programme, then stop.  Don't go any further.  It will only end badly.

See it through and move forward
Finally, if you are going ahead you need to see it through.  By now you should know that this wasn't a straightforward thing to do.  There needs to be realistic expectation and there needs to be contingency within your plans not outside it.  If you've ripped the plaster off expect to see a little blood.  Sticking another plaster over it takes you back to square one - though this time without any money, support or will.  If you're new processes are being replaced by old processes quicker than you can roll them out when you get to the end you'll be back to where you started.  This is where you find out whether you picked the right champion.  If you grit your teeth and see it through right to the end then you'll see whether your strategy and vision were right.

There's no guarantee of success even if you do everything right - though your chances of success are far higher - and if it's not going to success you should have given up far sooner.

Business Transformation favours the bold - so rip it up and start again.

Read my other posts

Just in Case - From early adoption to maturity
I have control - Can we truly own our identity
Tipping the balance - Getting the right balance between security and user experience
You don't know what you're doing - Poor security practices are putting users at risk 
I didn't say you could touch me - Biometric authentication and identity
You don't need to tell me - Impacts of the EU General Data Protection Regulations
Coming together on being alone - The need for a clear government digital strategy
I'm not the person I used to be - Authentication for real world identities
Distributed Identity has no clothes - Will distributed ledger technology solve identity
Bring Your Own Downfall - Why we should embrace federated identity
Unblocking Digital Identity - Identity on the Blockchain as the next big thing
Tick to Agree - Doing the right thing with customer's data
The Kids Are All Right - Convenient authentication: the minimum standard for the younger generation
The ridiculous mouse - Why identity assurance must be a rewarding experience for users
Big Brother's Protection - How Big Brother can protect our privacy
I don't know who I am anymore - How to prove your identity online
Three Little Words - What it means for your business to be agile

Defining the Business Analyst - Better job descriptions for Business Analysis
Unexpected Customer Behaviour -  The role of self-service in your customer service strategy
Too Big To Fail - Keeping the heart of your business alive
The upstarts at the startups - How startups are changing big business 
One Small Step - The practice of greatness
In pursuit of mediocrity - Why performance management systems drive mediocrity

About me
Bryn Robinson-Morgan is an independent Business Consultant with interests in Identity Assurance, Agile Organisational Design and Customer Centric Architecture.  Bryn has near 20 years experience working with some of the United Kingdom's leading brands and largest organisations.

Follow Bryn on Twitter: @No1_BA

Connect with Bryn on Linked In: Bryn Robinson-Morgan

The upstarts at the startups

Startups disrupting big business is nothing new.  It's nearly 40 years since Apple set about changing how technology companies operated yet the difference today is the "unique" way in which Steve Jobs disrupted the status quo is now seen as normal behaviour.  There are numerous examples of how Jobs ignored the rules of business and went about doing what he wanted to do, how he wanted to do it.  For example the story of Jobs changing the colours of a global behemoth's corporate logo because it didn't fit the colour scheme of his own presentation.  If you told that story to the entrepreneurs in one of the many startup workspaces today you'd likely be greeted with lots of blinking, unimpressed faces.

The characteristics of the entrepreneur haven't necessarily changed - its the environment that has.  Barriers to getting your idea to market aren't what they were.  You can take your great idea, using cloud tech or a mobile platform and go to market with it quicker, easier and more cheaply than ever before.  As existing businesses open up their API's, the future of the startup becomes even more of a challenge to the status quo.

Today's entrepreneur can share a ride in an Uber car, to their office for the day that they found on Workspace, find a sofa to surf for the evening on AirBNB - after they've been fed and watered at a collaboration workshop from MeetUp of course.  The very way in which Apple began 40 years ago is now a commoditised digital industry that enables more startups to launch more ideas to disrupt more of the status quo more easily.

How existing corporates respond to the changing (changed) landscape in the world of the startup will be key to their own futures.  Having your own offices, infrastructure, employees and everything else that comes with being a corporate needs money - and that becomes more of a liability and less of an asset in competing with the startups.  Not having a brand reputation for a start-up becomes a positive because they have nothing to lose.  A thousand startups can come and go before one lands that disrupts the landscape - yet as the startup itself becomes a disposable commodity, the higher the rate of turnover and the more frequent the disruption.

Corporates who "want to foster the startup culture" often miss the point that they have a brand reputation to look after, that they have enough money to make it worth being sued and that their staff expect to sleep in their own bed not on someone else's sofa.  Its not enough just to let someone wear a pair of shorts and a vaguely offensive t-shirt and think that you're acting like a start up.

To stay relevant in 10 years time, big business does need to change.  How they embrace the startup culture will vary from organisation to organisation.  Some will fund the start-ups, setting up innovation hubs - buying out the good ideas that fit their needs and wishing well those that don't.  Some will lessen the bureaucracy that they've constrained themselves with and allow more innovation to thrive from within.  Some will radically restructure themselves, becoming lean management, brand and policy units with subsidiaries that are there to make or break.

There will of course be those organisation that batten down the hatches and adopt a protective litigation stance. Though the chances are that those who look to embrace it will stand more chance of being relevant in 10 years time.

The upstart from the startup could also be your boss in 10 years time - so chose wisely who you have sleeping on your sofa!

Read my other posts

Just in Case - From early adoption to maturity
I have control - Can we truly own our identity
Tipping the balance - Getting the right balance between security and user experience
You don't know what you're doing - Poor security practices are putting users at risk 
I didn't say you could touch me - Biometric authentication and identity
You don't need to tell me - Impacts of the EU General Data Protection Regulations
Coming together on being alone - The need for a clear government digital strategy
I'm not the person I used to be - Authentication for real world identities
Distributed Identity has no clothes - Will distributed ledger technology solve identity
Bring Your Own Downfall - Why we should embrace federated identity
Unblocking Digital Identity - Identity on the Blockchain as the next big thing
Tick to Agree - Doing the right thing with customer's data
The Kids Are All Right - Convenient authentication: the minimum standard for the younger generation
The ridiculous mouse - Why identity assurance must be a rewarding experience for users
Big Brother's Protection - How Big Brother can protect our privacy
I don't know who I am anymore - How to prove your identity online
Three Little Words - What it means for your business to be agile

Defining the Business Analyst - Better job descriptions for Business Analysis
Unexpected Customer Behaviour -  The role of self-service in your customer service strategy
Rip it up and start again - The successful Business Transformation
Too Big To Fail - Keeping the heart of your business alive
One Small Step - The practice of greatness
In pursuit of mediocrity - Why performance management systems drive mediocrity

About me
Bryn Robinson-Morgan is an independent Business Consultant with interests in Identity Assurance, Agile Organisational Design and Customer Centric Architecture.  Bryn has near 20 years experience working with some of the United Kingdom's leading brands and largest organisations.

Follow Bryn on Twitter: @No1_BA

Connect with Bryn on Linked In: Bryn Robinson-Morgan

Defining the Business Analyst

The role of the Business Analyst varies from industry to industry, from company to company, from department to department and from individual to individual. Yet there is always a common theme that run through every Business Analyst job description - if you can't find anyone else to do a task, it's a part of the Business Analyst's role. The good old catchall of "other tasks as defined from time to time" makes up a significant portion of the daily tasks heaped upon the Business Analyst. 

At one end of the scale companies use the experience, knowledge and expertise of their Business Analysts to help shape their strategy. Multi-million pound IT projects or remodelling the corporate structure become reliant on the involvement of the Business Analyst. And at the other end, the Business Analyst is documenting a process for how the Contact Centre's IVR flow works or how the paper clips get ordered. 

As is the case for most roles, the ability, knowledge and competence of those in the Business Analyst skills pool can vary hugely.  Though if the role of the Business Analyst isn’t properly understood or appreciated resource allocation can often take its cue from selecting the sports team at school.  The popular kids being picked first and the weedy kid with the strange odour being left as Hobson’s choice.  This can result in the top talent being reduced to counting the paperclips and the task oriented Business Analysts being left to do root cause analysis on why the organisation’s strategy is failing.  When it comes to how organisations value their Business Analysts, all too often their all round ability and general willingness to pick up the threads that everyone else is all too willing to leave hanging seems to count against them. They can be left feeling either undervalued or overstretched because their skills aren’t being used appropriately.  

Whilst clear definition exists between Programme Managers, Project Managers and Project Management Office roles or Enterprise, Project and Software Architects, for the Business Analyst the differentiation is often made through the subtlety of a prefix such as Principal, Lead, Senior or Junior.  This lack of clear definition shouldn't undermine the value placed on a core component of the project team.  Organisations who use find and replace to differentiate their Business Analyst job descriptions, giving the same tasks a different verb to show the level of the person, need to think differently.

As we look to do more for less, harnessing the benefits of fleet of foot, agile delivery in both business process design and technology delivery, Business Analysts will segment further into those who have the skills of strategic, enterprise thinking; and those who are task focussed with a keen eye for detail. And as organisational structures becoming slimmer and more streamlined, often with business functions outsourced en mass, the need to empower Business Analysts to represent a smaller group of stakeholders in making decisions based on their own breadth and depth of knowledge will grow.  The Business Analyst, with the ability to define the strategy and with the business or subject knowledge to make decisions, will be required to fill the gaps in this slimmer structure.  Meanwhile the task oriented Business Analyst will support their peers in bringing their vision to fruition. 

Whether the Business Analyst role will morph into Enterprise Analysts, Project Analysts and Process Analysts or whether organisations will begin to recognise the subtlety of the prefixes currently in existence remains to be seen. For those working as a Business Analyst to have better definition of their role and the opportunity to be allocated to work based on their skills is undoubtedly attractive and will drive the marketplace; with the value and desirability of the roles at the Enterprise level becoming rightly more marked. 

Organisations who fail to remove the ambiguity from their job descriptions will be the ones who are left with only the task focussed Business Analysts; whilst those who make the definition and reward appropriately will reap the benefits at both ends of the scale. 

Read my other posts

Just in Case - From early adoption to maturity
I have control - Can we truly own our identity
Tipping the balance - Getting the right balance between security and user experience
You don't know what you're doing - Poor security practices are putting users at risk 
I didn't say you could touch me - Biometric authentication and identityYou don't need to tell me - Impacts of the EU General Data Protection Regulations
Coming together on being alone - The need for a clear government digital strategy
I'm not the person I used to be - Authentication for real world identities
Distributed Identity has no clothes - Will distributed ledger technology solve identity
Bring Your Own Downfall - Why we should embrace federated identity
Unblocking Digital Identity - Identity on the Blockchain as the next big thing
Tick to Agree - Doing the right thing with customer's data
The Kids Are All Right - Convenient authentication: the minimum standard for the younger generation
The ridiculous mouse - Why identity assurance must be a rewarding experience for users
Big Brother's Protection - How Big Brother can protect our privacy
I don't know who I am anymore - How to prove your identity online
Three Little Words - What it means for your business to be agile

Unexpected Customer Behaviour -  The role of self-service in your customer service strategy
Rip it up and start again - The successful Business Transformation
Too Big To Fail - Keeping the heart of your business alive
The upstarts at the startups - How startups are changing big business 
One Small Step - The practice of greatness
In pursuit of mediocrity - Why performance management systems drive mediocrity

About me
Bryn Robinson-Morgan is an independent Business Consultant with interests in Identity Assurance, Agile Organisational Design and Customer Centric Architecture.  Bryn has near 20 years experience working with some of the United Kingdom's leading brands and largest organisations.

Follow Bryn on Twitter: @No1_BA

Connect with Bryn on Linked In: Bryn Robinson-Morgan

Unexpected Customer Behaviour In The Bagging Area

This week saw the UK's forth largest supermarket, Morrisons, announce the return of staffed express checkouts.  As the first major retailer to make the u-turn, what now is the future strategy for self-service?  Are Morrisons responding to a change in customer shopping behaviour or did they, along with the rest of the retail market, get their strategy wrong in the first place?

The figures show that only one in three supermarket customers had used self-service; what makes this figure even bleaker is that queues at staffed checkouts have actually lengthened where self-service has been introduced.  For supermarkets, self-service checkouts have played a contributory factor in the loss of customers to smaller rivals who are seen to offer a better experience with personalised service at a lower cost. 

Lowering staff headcount to reduce operating costs is the headline benefit for most organisations who have introduced self-service checkouts.  Unfortunately when cost reduction is at the heart of your customer service strategy the outcome is fairly predictable.  Customer behaviour shouldn't have been unexpected - the impact on satisfaction levels when you introduce cost saving measures are, with the odd exception, going to be negative. 

It is unlikely though, that self-service will be removed from the customer service strategy of any retailer. And nor should it be. As someone who has implemented self-service into the retail sector, I believe that it has an even greater role to play in retail strategy in the future. Yet those organisations who implement it correctly will be the ones whose focus in on improving the customer experience through the use of technology. A by-product of this will be the cost saving through headcount reduction. 

One of the best examples of self-service is travel ticketing used on the London public transport network.  In order to migrate customers to self-service they introduced the Oyster travel card.  Within ten years of its introduction in 2003, Oyster was used in over 80% of all journeys.  So successful that self-service ticketing will allow London Underground to close all of its ticket offices by the end of 2015 - down from over 250 when Oyster was first introduced.  These are figures that supermarkets can only dream of.

The reason why self-service for London public transport has been so successful is that they used the introduction of Oyster to make self-service ticketing more convenient for their customers.  The strategy for implementation was built upon a simplified pricing policy, highly reliable infrastructure and incremental migration of more complex products as customer advocacy grew. 

For retailers, this lesson of simplifying the underlying customer experience, making self-service the convenient choice, ensuring the platform is reliable and only growing as reliability is proven and adoption grows, is one they can still use.  Simple measures that can overcome the failings of current technology or operating constraints need to be considered.  The complexity of the transaction needs to be reduced - if you need to train your staff to do a task don't expect your customers to be able to do the same task without training.  

For customers, the use of self-service check outs needs to be a preference – a choice that they make rather than something that is enforced on them by the retailer.  This preference may be subject to the context – a basket of shopping can drive significantly different behaviour than an over-flowing trolley of goods.  Putting the customer at the heart of the retailers self-service strategy will enable context to be considered, behaviours to be modelled and solutions to be designed to meet customer needs.  In an increasingly digitally enabled world, self-service will also be omni-channel; a richer experience in store and online that delivers convenience and benefit to customers that encourages the adoption of self-service and a migration away from staffed checkouts.

So whilst Morrisons may have seemingly made a u-turn, in reality they should just be revisiting their customer service strategy to make sure that when it comes to self-service, customer behaviour is not an unexpected item. 

Read my other posts

Just in Case - From early adoption to maturity
I have control - Can we truly own our identity
Tipping the balance - Getting the right balance between security and user experience
You don't know what you're doing - Poor security practices are putting users at risk 
I didn't say you could touch me - Biometric authentication and identity
You don't need to tell me - Impacts of the EU General Data Protection Regulations
Coming together on being alone - The need for a clear government digital strategy
I'm not the person I used to be - Authentication for real world identities
Distributed Identity has no clothes - Will distributed ledger technology solve identity
Bring Your Own Downfall - Why we should embrace federated identity
Unblocking Digital Identity - Identity on the Blockchain as the next big thing
Tick to Agree - Doing the right thing with customer's data
The Kids Are All Right - Convenient authentication: the minimum standard for the younger generation
The ridiculous mouse - Why identity assurance must be a rewarding experience for users
Big Brother's Protection - How Big Brother can protect our privacy
I don't know who I am anymore - How to prove your identity online
Three Little Words - What it means for your business to be agile

Defining the Business Analyst - Better job descriptions for Business Analysis
Rip it up and start again - The successful Business Transformation
Too Big To Fail - Keeping the heart of your business alive
The upstarts at the startups - How startups are changing big business 
One Small Step - The practice of greatness
In pursuit of mediocrity - Why performance management systems drive mediocrity

About me
Bryn Robinson-Morgan is an independent Business Consultant with interests in Identity Assurance, Agile Organisational Design and Customer Centric Architecture.  Bryn has near 20 years experience working with some of the United Kingdom's leading brands and largest organisations.

Follow Bryn on Twitter: @No1_BA

Connect with Bryn on Linked In: Bryn Robinson-Morgan

Too big to fail

We all know now that there's no such thing as an organisation that is too big to fail. The oft quoted examples of Woolworth's, Blockbuster, HMV and Northern Rock are the go to guys whenever anyone wants to demonstrate this point. The same people will also lament the key decisions, the forks in the road, that led to these institutions downfall. Next time someone does, ask them, if Woolworth's or HMV had offered a music download service, if Blockbuster had been the first to offer movie streaming, if Northern Rock had concentrated more on their savings customers - what would these companies look like now? 

Let's take Blockbuster as an example. If they had decided that selling popcorn, sweets and pop wasn't going to save their business; if they should lead the reinvention of the movie rental business for the stay at home postal and streaming service - what would the world look like now? Well given their brand and market presence undoubtedly they'd have signed up customers to their online service and in doing so they'd have accelerated the decline in their retail network- though admittedly, not by much. They'd have become a business with one division in rapid growth and another in terminal decline. And like any sensible business in this position they would have hived off the loss making arm into a separate entity. Fast forward a few years to a situation where the loss making company finally calls it a day and appoints the Administrators to wind up the business with the loss of jobs for the workforce and money for the creditors, such as the landlords. And what of the poster boy of the brand, the overnight success of rapid growth and marketplace innovation? Well, given the relative ease of entry into the marketplace that company has just been sold to the global, multi-playing  behemoth - earning the shareholders a nice payday - yet rebranded to eventually disappear from our conscience . 

So the parallel universe that "management consultants" earn their fortunes on need not necessarily end up being any different - the change is a constant, evolve or die mantra of which only a fool would stick their head above the parapet to disagree with - is it just the emperors new clothes?

Well, let's look at the alternate option; who are the companies that survive because they stick to their principles and trust that by doing so they have a place in society or recognise where the end of the line is and manage their inevitable decline? On the whole these are the small trader - the family business handed down through the generations or the sole trader who knows their retirement signals the end of their own local institution. They build their business, they reap the rewards, they plan and accept the end. 

So what can the corporate world learn from the mortals? How can they satisfy the demands of their shareholders and keep the CEO in their job?

Well the first lesson has to be to recognise that they don't have to be immortal. You're only worthwhile if you add value. If you've built your business as a master butcher don't kid yourself that you still exist, just now you sell dog food. Secondly change doesn't have to be constant; if you're good at something keep being good at it - evolution not revolution. Thirdly, if the Finance Director tells you if everyone stops breathing the air will last longer - don't agree with her logic, suck in as much air as you can in the time you have left to enjoy it. Fourthly, if you're good, you got there because you have good people; look after them. Fifthly, try to get better at what you're good at and to become good at new things too. Stop doing the things no one wants though, even if you're still good at them. And finally, remember, that no business is too big to fail.

Read my other posts

Just in Case - From early adoption to maturity
I have control - Can we truly own our identity
Tipping the balance - Getting the right balance between security and user experience
You don't know what you're doing - Poor security practices are putting users at risk 
I didn't say you could touch me - Biometric authentication and identity
You don't need to tell me - Impacts of the EU General Data Protection Regulations
Coming together on being alone - The need for a clear government digital strategy
I'm not the person I used to be - Authentication for real world identities
Distributed Identity has no clothes - Will distributed ledger technology solve identity
Bring Your Own Downfall - Why we should embrace federated identity
Unblocking Digital Identity - Identity on the Blockchain as the next big thing
Tick to Agree - Doing the right thing with customer's data
The Kids Are All Right - Convenient authentication: the minimum standard for the younger generation
The ridiculous mouse - Why identity assurance must be a rewarding experience for users
Big Brother's Protection - How Big Brother can protect our privacy
I don't know who I am anymore - How to prove your identity online
Three Little Words - What it means for your business to be agile

Defining the Business Analyst - Better job descriptions for Business Analysis

Unexpected Customer Behaviour -  The role of self-service in your customer service strategy

Rip it up and start again - The successful Business Transformation

The upstarts at the startups - How startups are changing big business 

One Small Step - The practice of greatness
In pursuit of mediocrity - Why performance management systems drive mediocrity

About me

Bryn Robinson-Morgan is an independent Business Consultant with interests in Identity Assurance, Agile Organisational Design and Customer Centric Architecture.  Bryn has near 20 years experience working with some of the United Kingdom's leading brands and largest organisations.

Follow Bryn on Twitter: @No1_BA

Connect with Bryn on Linked In: Bryn Robinson-Morgan