What does “Business Transformation” mean for management and employees?

Nearly every day a new business trend is driven through the village, which is supposed to make the performance of the companies rise to almost immeasurable levels or at least to ensure that the companies can continue to be successful in the market.

One time it is the digital transformation, the next time artificial intelligence, then again robotics and finally employee centricity, which should bring enlightenment to the companies.

Don’t get me wrong – these are all developments, trends, technologies and concepts that have their justification and can be, and in part will be, of decisive importance for the future of companies.

However, if we wanted to keep all developments and issues that could potentially be relevant to companies under control and not miss any opportunity, this is likely to be a mammoth task that will generate enormous costs and sometimes will not contribute to the company’s survival – on the contrary, uncoordinated and non-prioritized projects in this environment are more likely to be accompanied by chaos and loss of focus of the company on the market. Therefore, caution and prudence are required when considering the future development of the company.

All the above-mentioned developments, business and technology trends, which will undoubtedly come to us, will certainly lead to the necessity to transform (change) the whole company or parts of it with regard to processes, organization and application of technologies in the value chain of the company.

To make this transformation in a company successful, a few essential skills and rules are necessary in a company. These skills need to be developed and promoted in a targeted manner and rules on how the company carries out business changes need to be defined and be transparent to all and adhered to.

No master craftsman has fallen out of the sky, and external consulting alone will not achieve this, because in the end, the company itself is responsible for successful implementation. This responsibility cannot be externalized, but must necessarily be assumed by the company management!

Well then – what is to be done?

First of all, it must be clear where the company wants to go. A description of the target state must be formulated clearly and comprehensibly for the employees; if only for communication purposes, because how should it be clear to the employees “where the journey is to go and how to get there” if the company cannot formulate and postulate this clearly? This does not mean that general statements such as “… we want to intensify CRM Customer Relationship Management…” have to be formulated and communicated, but it is advisable to concretize clear objectives with clear statements on how this should be done (i.e. to make it clear to employees HOW this should be done).

A second essential point is that sufficient project know-how (methodological and conceptual skills) must be available in the company to manage such transformation projects from within. It is a fact that in many companies there is too little know-how to manage such projects in a structured way (and this is crucial for larger change projects). This can be remedied by companies working specifically on the skills of their employees (and this is where external consultancy can provide support).

The third and decisive point is the absolute willingness and ability of the management team to implement. Often these so-called “key projects” are tackled too half-heartedly and at the first resistance the weapons are stretched out – and one thing is for sure: change projects will always lead to great resistance, as employees and managers will have to discard their cherished habits and massively change their behavior and working methods (up to and including leadership behavior). Unfortunately, such behavior is somehow not in the nature of human beings, but you have to force yourself (and your business environment) to do so from time to time. And that requires courage and steadfastness.