We’ve all read those articles about digital transformation. The ones which extol the virtues of a continuous change programme underpinned by a technology roadmap to drive business improvement. It sounds marvellous. After all, we all acknowledge the benefits and value that data and automation can bring. But the tricky bit for many organisations is simply getting there.
You may be in an organisation where your IT team spends most of its time ensuring the existing infrastructure and applications are operational; if they aren’t it’s a bad day for everyone. Your organisation budgets for major change in 3 or 5 year chunks, so for most of the time the focus is business as usual. Annual budget is scarce, so often spending focuses on a few pet projects from those that shout the loudest. Staff outside the IT team become frustrated at the pace of change and that is when shadow IT solutions creep in, which your team inevitably end up firefighting too.
No one is happy. And when you finally get to a point where you could implement a major change it can be equally frustrating.
You have groups of users who are invested in the ‘way things are’ and are change resistant. There may be a fear of the unknown because of project X that went horribly wrong (every organisation has one of those – don’t be fooled). There may not be a culture of the critical thinking needed to ask the right questions and your organisation may not have access to the skills or knowledge required. You have one chance to do this right and realise the benefits from the transformation. All of this leads to inertia.
That’s when a critical friend such as Fordway can be useful. Having informed and driven hundreds of digital transformation projects and with no vested interest in the status quo we can:
- Ask difficult questions – no area is too sensitive, whether in terms of business criticality, technically or politically. We don’t work for your organisation and if we really upset your staff we don’t come back the following day – and we’ll guarantee your money back. It’s very helpful to know why Project X failed so we can understand the issues and cultural blockages you have faced in the past.
- Identify where gaps reside – gaps between suppliers or internal responsibilities are the crux of many service delivery issues. For example: who does what, what is covered in your service level agreements, what skills and knowledge do you have in-house. Closing the gaps or even simply knowing where they reside will help you resolve issues faster.
- Options analysis – you have choices, for most of our clients the actual issue is having too many choices and being able to decide on which is the best one for your organisation. Our independent options analysis will evaluate the pros and cons of each alternative for your organisation.
- We’re unafraid to call ‘your baby ugly’ – Sometimes there can be sensitivity over internal systems or particular team members. If we really feel we need to highlight the shortcomings of your current services we will tell you and provide the statistics and findings to back it up – we’re counting that you want an honest opinion. If we find ‘cute’ redeeming features we’ll tell you that too. If we really p**s you off without providing you valuable insights, we’ll disappear and refund any initial consultancy fee we’ve charged.
- Independent advice and insight, with no hidden agenda – we’ve been providing vendor independent technology advice for the last 27 years.
In the last 5 years Fordway has successfully helped our clients deliver over 200 significant IT transformation and cloud migration projects. To achieve this we’ve worked with pretty much every conceivable technology and a huge range of vendors, and delivered great results with all of them. How can we help you?
