Transformation strategy: Why you need it

What:

A transformational strategy is a plan of action aimed at shifting a company’s course, this process usually takes several years but some plans have goals in the short term. To make the strategy work, top management seeks professional help, to understand the field they try and develop into. These experts help define and put in place a plan of action.

This transformation can happen in any field, the idea behind it is that for companies to stay relevant, they have to constantly adapt to the current trends. This means being able to make quick changes. For companies to develop and keep innovating, they also have to focus on a long-term vision or goal, some kind of reason for their existence, an ultimate goal that guides their actions.

This could be a top-down restructuring, different cost-cutting policies, reengineering, or a technological makeover. These tend to be quite difficult to implement, often over budget and late.

A transformation can be summarized as a major shift in an organization’s identity and capabilities so as to better deliver results.

Why:

Businesses constantly have to innovate, sometimes they take the wrong approach and get stuck. They might not understand the market they’re in or fail to deliver on their promises. In any way, these situations have to be analyzed and a company can find solutions by engaging in a transformation strategy.

These serve two purposes:

• Adapting to a market
• Having a long term vision that guides you

A business can grow out of touch with its audience, maybe it’s because the brand is getting old or investors have left. In any case, a transformation strategy can serve as a rebranding, helping the company start from scratch and to a complete overhaul. This will help the company erase any previous history and start on fresh new ground, ready to conquer its new domain.

Having a long-term vision for your company is extremely important, it helps create a philosophy for your business and allows employees to adhere to those values. This makes employees grow more loyal and engaged by giving them a reason. This long-term goal will also influence the decision-making process and guide the company to what it should be.

How:

Establishing a strategy to transform your business is no easy feat, it requires the help of specialists to help understand the dynamics at play and the environment your organization is evolving in. There are still main ideas that you can follow and develop to reach your goal.

• Strategic Identity

To start out the transformation, you need to know where you want to go. Try and articulate a desirable future and the condition in which you’d like your enterprise to be. Focus your efforts on making that future a reality, how are you going to mold your business into this vision ?

This vision will define your domain and the philosophy of your business, pay attention to it, exchange with people on it, try to make it clear and precise so as to know where you’re going and the choices you’ll make.

• Design for trust

Change can be hard to accept, it’s therefore important to establish a certain trust in your company. Make sure everyone is engaged in the process and ready to join the transformation. The goal is to attract and get the commitment of your employees.

This vision also radiates outwards, it will impact your clients as well, which means you have to pay attention to how they view that transformation as well.

Connecting with your community of users and employees helps build that trust, it might mean engaging with them on social media or sending out invites to events for people to meet and share that vision.

• Getting your idea to scale

To induce change, it’s important to test out your ideas on a small scale first, try and create a testing environment for you to experiment with what works best. Once satisfied with your ideas, you can scale them up to larger systems ?

Try and use Agile methodologies to implement your ideas, almost like a startup, try and focus on getting feedback on your idea, is your intuition really worthwhile or should it be improved before a wide-scale implementation ?

• Your legacy is an asset

If you’ve made it so far, it means that you’ve done some things right. Don’t try and change everything, sure your transformation strategy aims at fixing your business, but keep in mind it aims at fixing what doesn’t work.

You might not have to start everything from the ground up, save the best from the past, try an eliminate the rest and use that income to invest in the future of your company.

        As a company grows, it’s normal for it to feel lost or not make any progress. This plateau means the business struggles to innovate and stay on top of the current trends.  To help advance, this organization can engage in a transformation strategy, a long-term vision that aims at guiding a business in the right direction. This implies a change of perspective and processes which has to be dealt with, bringing customers and employees onboard is an important aspect of this transformation.