Transformation is the key to turning business strategy from theory into action, but successfully delivering transformation can be challenging, with many initiatives doomed to failure. In today’s increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) world, even a well-planned transformation programme can suddenly require drastic modifications.
This Executive Insights draws on recent experience helping a client in the utilities sector repair a bogged-down transformation programme and put its business strategy back on track.
The initial transformation journey and challenges
The group’s transformation began through partnerships with two major professional services firms. Following a brief diagnostic phase, the focus shifted to large immersive workshops involving over 100 subject matter experts from various departments across the organisation. This process unearthed thousands of key frictions, identifying essential areas for transformation efforts. However, this approach had its limitations.
A fragmented approach
While there was consensus on the frictions and the enabling projects needed to address them, the approach faltered in connecting investments in enabling projects with concrete outcomes and clear responsibilities. The bottom-up approach quickly generated individual solutions, but it was unclear whether these solutions were ambitious enough or how they would impact different parts of the organisation.
This fragmented approach meant the group was unable to generate SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) targets. Additionally, ongoing performance improvement projects made it difficult for project teams to distinguish the expected benefits of new initiatives from their ongoing work.
Challenges in framing implementation
Implementing enabling projects like digitisation required significant investment. However, without transparency and accountability regarding expected returns, internal governance staff rejected the plan. They viewed it as poorly defined, lacking credibility and overly expensive with poor prioritisation of enabling projects. This brought the transformation to a halt, a discouraging outcome given the hard work already done.
How L.E.K. revitalised the group’s transformation plan
Taking a structured approach to address challenges
With a constrained timetable, we were asked to support the repair of the transformation plan and gain board approval. We quickly identified the need for a structured approach to address the challenges faced by the group’s transformation plan, focusing on three key drivers:
- Restoring consistency between performance diagnostic, objectives, and transformation levers
- Redefining priorities and the programme roadmap
- Re-engaging transformation stakeholders on revised key projects
Our business transformation standards comprise eight key modules (see Figure 1).
