Transforming to meet business outcomes

Change is a necessity for organisations to meet the challenges of an evolving business environment.

Delivering a service improvement or cost efficiencies program that require a significant organisational change, an introduction of new technology or change of suppliers whilst ensuring that the business remains on track often represents a new challenge for an existing team.

Amalgamotion are specialists in transition and transformation programs and excel in recognising and addressing specific challenges to ensure business outcomes are achieved. This article discusses some of these challenges that we have seen on our journeys with customers.

Embrace the complexity

Change is vital for organisations to maintain a competitive edge however transition and transformation programs are often complex, costly, and their full impact is frequently oversimplified or underestimated. Without proper planning and governance, this complexity can derail any program.

Successfully addressing this planning challenge requires a unique skill set: the ability to understand the impacts of the business change, translate it into a logical, integrated plan and then execute it effectively. This is a capability not always readily available in today’s market.

In one example, Amalgamotion provided advisory services to a large telecommunications company to support both the customer and an incoming operations partner through the change process. Through a collaborative process the business requirements were translated into a multi-phase plan which was complemented with a robust governance and reporting schedule to effectively manage and mitigate risks and issues.

Amalgamotion ensured that the retained organisation navigated the transition seamlessly, with performance being monitored before, during and after transition and an assurance that all scope was carefully handed over with minimal disruption

Consider the value chain

A lack of consideration of the wider impact of a business change during the initial scoping and planning stages often hinders the success of change programs.

An evaluation of the complete value chain, which may involve numerous handover points with dependencies and expectations beyond the entity initiating the change is an important step in the process. With these stakeholders (internal, external, customer and partner) actively engaged in the planning around areas such as communications, training, process and document development and people management a more cohesive plan can be agreed upon up front. This step further enables the delivery to focus on the outcomes whilst pro-actively building an understanding of any potential risks that may need to be mitigated.

As part of one program, Amalgamotion supported our client by going beyond the immediate needs of the client to consider their customers and end-users. This was within the context of a critical service environment where dropping the ball was not an option.

With this additional detailed planning and effort, the program was able to adhere to its delivery timeline without compromising quality and was fundamental to the ongoing operations and continuity of service.

Delivery must go on

Cost is a critical factor for all organisations, often leading to resistance against adding resources to deliver a transition or transformation program. This approach typically aims to leverage existing knowledge, minimise change-related expenses, and ensure ongoing engagement and ownership.

However, Amalgamotion’s experience in reviewing inflight programs has revealed that this strategy often yields limited success. Conflicting demands on resources to manage both business-as-usual (BAU) and change programs frequently result in suboptimal outcomes for both.

Mitigating a decline in BAU performance during transitions is a key component for any transition. Providing the operational team with adequate support is crucial for maintaining morale, safeguarding business outcomes, and minimising risks.

From a change perspective, ensuring on-time program delivery with the expected quality requires focused and empowered resources. Splitting responsibilities between BAU and change initiatives places unnecessary strain on teams, leading to delays, reduced quality, potential reputation damage and increased costs. This does not account for the personal pressures and challenges faced by individuals involved.

With the right upfront discussions and strategies, a cost-efficient model can be implemented to reduce risk while protecting people, customers, and stakeholders. Various models are available, including augmenting existing teams, outsourcing specific tasks, or incorporating outcome-based services for either the program or BAU activities.

Amalgamotion brings extensive experience across all these approaches, having delivered these services successfully in the telecommunications, government, and infrastructure sectors.

Focus on collaboration

In complex and challenging programs, it is crucial to ensure that collaboration and interworking across teams is engrained into all teams and stakeholders. With these activities there is a tension and at the same time a passion to deliver, can cause unnecessary friction that impacts the program, business as usual activities and, more critically, individuals.

Laying the foundations at the start of a transition and transformation will set the program off on the right footing, and having the ongoing support and check-points assists with minimising tension and conflict.

Leveraging our values-based business model and experience in organisational culture, Amalgamotion has developed a Cultural Integration and Capability Development Framework to support transition and transformation projects. This provides a blueprint to work from and integrate into planning activities and provides a proven model to drive a positive culture within the program.

Amalgamotion sees great success when working alongside business change experts within organisations to develop and execute integrated workshops to develop and establish a program charter. This becomes the calling card, the reference point and the commitment to each other around the agreed values.

Conclusion

Amalgamotion are specialists at getting clients from where they are, to where they want to be. From outsourcing to insourcing, through implementing a new technology or changing established operating models, we believe that the engagement of a specialist transformation expert is the best way to mitigate the pitfalls of these programs and deliver successful outcomes.

We offer a values-driven, collaborative approach that leverages a proven six stage methodology and our cross-functional team of experts that can assist in every stage of your transformation journey.

While many can manage projects and programs through transitions and transformations, Amalgamotion excel in recognising and addressing specific challenges to ensure business outcomes are achieved. A core tenant of this is the management of change while considering the distinct intricacies of the program to ensure that the business will meet its goals both during and after the transition.

Our goal is to help our customers balance business-as-usual with transformation programs to deliver successful outcomes that meet both the short- and long-term needs of the business.