BTS - Business-Technology Synchronicity
A recurring theme in the work that I have done in the past 3-4 years is the lack of what I call BTS - Business-Technology Synchronicity.
The premise is that a colleague in a senior position or a client, talks about how their organisation invested a lot of money in a technology or platform, which has a very good reputation in the industry, but which didn’t integrate very well with their incumbent systems and didn’t deliver the benefits that were expected during the business case for procurement.
More often than not, I find that the technology or platform that is procured is deserving of the reputation in the industry. Its capabilities should be able to deliver the kinds of benefits that the organisation wanted. So, why doesn’t it do that.
It comes down to how the technology platform is procured and how the pre-implementation planning is conducted (or not).
When an organisation expects to be able to buy a technology platform, implement it, connect it up and expect the out-of-the-box capabilities to just work with incumbent systems, problems happen, most of the time.
There are a number of preparatory steps that I find missing in these scenarios. Here is what I find missing a lot:
- Comprehensive as-is and to-be process mapping
- Mapping of technology capabilities to the process maps
- Creation of a configuration backlog for the procured technology platform to deliver the functionality that - drives critical path use cases for to-be processes
- A robust master data management strategy that serves the needs of the transformation roadmap
- A well designed integration strategy and architecture that supports the required interoperability of - - systems that will deliver the benefits
- Rigorous communication and cultural change protocols that drive change adoption at all levels
Without the above 6 foundational activities, the chance of a procured technology delivering the intended benefits out-of-the-box are slim.
These foundational workstreams mould the procured technology platform to the business and its needs. That’s BTS.
Anything less is simply hoping that the technology fits the business out-of-the-box. That’s hoping to get lucky - not a sound business strategy.
Without BTS, money is wasted, people move on, new people come in and organisations often just rinse and repeat…