Big projects might slip, but small steps win.

Balancing impact with agility

Most large digital transformation projects don’t succeed as intended. Highly involved, complex, organisation-wide, cross-geographical projects that aim to transform multiple arms of the business simultaneously are more often than not likely to fall over at some point along the way. The project will become consolidated, redefined, or in the most unfortunate cases, scrapped.

Gartner reports that 75% of ERP projects fail, with CRM not far behind, and digital transformation failing 70% of the time. Some initiatives fare even worse; the famed “disruptive innovation” academic and author Clayton Christensen claimed 95% of product innovation projects fail.

Why is this? Large transformation projects can sometimes blow their budgets, potentially putting the entire organisation at risk. According to Seth Goldstrom, global leader for McKinsey’s enterprise transformation team, it can start with failing to communicate the right change story, or not being able to align incentives for different parts of the business, or not bringing the right team and talent together.

It can extend to making false trade-offs between, for example, cost and customer experience, when in fact the organisations that do achieve success insist that both are achievable without succumbing to an “either, or” ultimatum. Transformation projects can also fail by jumping headfirst into a trendy new technology without building the right foundation or embarking on a project without the right business strategy in place.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. From my experience, bigger projects work best when they are cut down into smaller pieces, as mini-milestones and even smaller entire initiatives. Looked at this way, it’s these smaller and more achievable information and communications technology (ICT) milestones or projects which stand the best chance of success.

They also are a great way to show early results and keep your teams and your senior executives energised along the way. These are the pieces or smaller projects you can achieve in a couple of months, working step by step toward your strategic bigger picture. Within a few quarters, you and your team will have steadily built capability upon capability, learning and growing as you progress, instilling a more agile and continuous improvement mindset across the key strategic ICT areas of your business.

And in my view, the most important three areas for ICT focus in 2022-2023 are security, automation, and data insights. Furthermore, the best way to design and steer your initiatives across these essential pillars is through the lens of experience. Specifically, depending on the project type and desired outcomes, the customer and employee experience.        

Post-pandemic landscape – changes and priorities

As all industries adjust to a post-pandemic environment, we are embracing hybrid working practices en-masse. This brings a pressing organisational focus on the network technologies to facilitate such a shift, and ensuring the right levels of IT security will remain a big priority, and rightfully so.

The good news – from a productivity perspective – is the digital divide is almost completely eroded now. With access to faster and more equitable networks, business in regional areas such as Dubbo or Shepparton can compete on the same global scale as Sydney and Melbourne. You could argue they even enjoy a greater competitive advantage with many regional areas offering a lower cost of living.

Wherever your organisation is located, the pandemic has forced business models to change, and to be redesigned around the customer, not just the employee experience. To compete, many industries including corporate, technology, financial services, law, healthcare, and more must now provide satisfying customer experiences remotely. And the right applications, infrastructure and network technologies must be in place to facilitate this.

As organisations design initiatives around this customer and employee experience, projects need to place equal emphasis on achieving high levels of IT security, look for productivity gains from automation, and be fueled by solid data sets to build the right business case.  

But where do you start, how do you get there, and what should you prioritise?   

Incrementalism is the answer

We know big IT projects will encounter trouble more often than smaller ones. It follows that incremental steps toward your ICT strategy are a preferred option. For technology leaders, that might mean managing expectations downward or upward and setting the right expectations, even lowering them to a more realistic and practical level.

Take for example, hyped technologies such as robotics, AI, and the blockchain. Of course these digital breakthroughs are highly relevant for certain businesses and niche sectors. But the vast majority of organisations often can’t relate to them, they’re too intangible or may be potentially years away.

Most organisations are better off building roadmaps for the short, medium and longer term, then tackling their digital transformation strategy with smaller, incremental steps.

Systematically embark on achievable technology and customer experience projects you can take on each quarter which don’t require ‘betting the company’, and which avoid the risk and high costs involved with huge transformational initiatives. These are projects designed to achieve simple, consistent, quicker wins and provide faster proof points which can be leveraged across the wider business.

The 3 strategic areas of focus for ICT leaders

IT Security – Even before we switched to large scale remote and hybrid working, cybersecurity awareness was growing in importance. Threats and serious breaches from phishing, malware, human error, and corporate espionage can take an organisation down, financially and reputationally, in some cases completely. Make sure your security posture is robust, that you simplify the management of security vendors, and shift from a compliance mindset to a resilience mindset – a more inclusive IT security driver focused on speed and growth, something for which the whole organisation is responsible.

Automation – Driving productivity and efficiency across the organisation, automation gains can be derived from initiatives that combine applications, networks, devices and cloud. Look for ways to complete repetitive tasks faster to reduce manual errors along with time, effort and costs. Edge technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) can assist in gathering vital data and reducing manual tasks, quick wins that help organisations become leaner and more efficient.  

Data Analytics – Speaking of data, the challenge is there is so much of it, rendering it difficult to extract value. So focus on quality over quantity and find ways to strategically orchestrate the various links across the organisation so the insights gathered are more useful, relevant and actionable. Once again, if customer or employee experience outcomes drive the use of analytics, the business case will make more sense and act as a catalyst to drive visible and measurable success of the data initiative.

How TPG Telecom can help bring business together

Many of the ICT concepts I’ve outlined here align with our strategic customer technology programs. As a full-service business telco following recent merger activities, TPG Telecom now offers mobile, fixed networks, and managed services. Critically, in a bid to help customers reduce complexity, we’ve been focused on helping organisations reduce the number of vendors and platforms they need to manage across the network and security technology stack.

Our Australian business and government customers tell us we’re relatively easy to deal with, faster, and simpler in our approach to helping them achieve some of these quicker, incremental wins in line with their overarching ICT strategy.

From small and medium-size businesses looking for simple technologies to prosper and grow – to large enterprises concerned with reliable and secure innovation – to the Australian public sector which requires technology and service excellence to safeguard and future-proof our communities, TPG Telecom is here to help you prosper through connectivity, innovation, and flexible solutions.

To learn more, visit TPG Telecom Business Together web page.