Over 60% of companies out there are operating on a dated buisness model and 20% operating with a mental model that had expired for more than 5 years. There are little reasons for those 20% of companies to survie another 5 years or even 3 and for the other 60% they have a short window of opportunity to design and orchestrate their transformation.
Rapid changes in external environment, consumer behavior, global economics and disruptive technologies are throwing off the most rigor business strategies and the best trained managers. Although everyone expect to see big changes ahead but people reacts differently to change.
Many people become accustomed to the status quo and don't want to alter the way things are being done -- regardless of the potential benefits or the disruptive threats from emerging competition. For many, fear of the unknowns and the concerned about the ramifications on their careers are barriers to acknowlege the need for change. People don't like change. And winning belongs to those who thrive with change.
Success for operating in a neck-breaking speed and unknown environment often comes from the ability to drive the proper (or mulitple) transformation at different critical points -- for industry breakpoints. “Business as usual” simply means "end of a business or an industry." Being able to reimainge and reinvent offerings and models are critical to addressing economic volatility and staying on top of the market.
Business transformation traditionally takes the form of unfreezing to refreezing and briding the gaps in capabilities, mindset and performance. And these changes which can take the form of business strategy, management style, culture, organization design and business processes. One most popular model is the classic model proposed by Lewin which argues that the process of change involves three stages 1/ unfreezing, 2/ change and 3/ refreezing. This model was valuable in recognizing the importance of not only new learning, but also “unlearning” old attitudes, habits and behavior patterns. Today many question the practicality of this model suggesting that a “refreeze” implies a resistance to future change and partucular the future is uncertain.
The Idea Couture Brand-Driven Transformation Model has a strong future oritentation and focused on bringing strategic foresights and organization insights to reimage futures. It uses a lot of Design Thinking principles and makes the process very tangible and collaborative. It is a process of organzation co-creation which people put their stake on what shared destinies they wanted to particiapte in creating and thus releasing energy in the process. It will take 80 Power Point slides to illustrate the process, a high-level view of this model is captured by the following formula: Successful Brand-Driven Business Transformation = P+N+C+M+I+F
- P = Develop a perspective of the future(s) informed by strategic foresights (both customer and technology contexts) and deep organizational insights;
- N = Develop a co-created brand narrative that inspired people of possibilities and put purpsoe at the core of the story;
- C = Develop a compelling case for the need for change developed and shared by all executives, investors, employees and B2B business partners;
- M = Develop a practical means to tie innovation (roadmap) and projects to the desired future(s);
- I = Design an incentive systems that are aligned to identify and encourage appropriate behaviors compatible with the desired future;
- F = Develop feedback mechanism for each stage of the process to monitor progress and provide input for continuous improvement.
Any Business Transformation process is painful. The way many organisations manage change or transformation using existing model is facing the challenge of speed. They are too slow and by the time they refreeze, the market has shifted and they need another transformation. The other important issue is key decisions are made in isolation and the change piece comes later which I argue often is too late. The future of Business Transformation is a co-created one.
