One of the questions that consultants must always answer is how to win client work. Clients issue RFPs and they employ scoring criteria to select consultants. The scoring criteria are typically centered around technical competency and commercial arrangements. Clients’ procurement teams will lead the charge, score the vendors, and go through the selection processes.
Many companies already have mature business processes in place and core systems such as ERP/MRP and HR/Payroll systems installed to help automate such processes. These companies are now asking the questions of what to do with those processes during digital transformation. The good news is that even the most mature business processes will have Process Bugs and exceptions. The bugs and exceptions can be quality issues, compliance issues, data issues, and performance variances. Fixing the process bugs and addressing those exceptions using technology typically increase companies’ overall operational efficiency by 15-30%. This is a no-regret
While most IT organizations have been conducting IT budget reviews regularly for years, there are always opportunities to further improve the processes and get even more out of the IT cost review effort. COVID-19 further amplified the need to review IT budgets and reallocate precious IT resources. Having done this exercise many times for clients across different industries over the last 20 years, I am sharing my eight key lessons learned in this blog. When those issues are resolved, I have seen opportunities to rebalance 15-35% of the IT investment portfolio. Companies are increasingly conducting
While most companies still talk about business and IT alignment, the alignment between business and IT implies that business and IT are still opposite of each other. Companies are transforming themselves to become technology-empowered and make technology a core part of their business. For this transformation to work, companies should be thinking about the relationship between business and IT as the left and right sides of a human brain. Just like no one can function fully with only one side of the brain, business and IT must work together for any technology-empowered company. I had
Only 31% of companies view themselves as data driven in 2019. According to a recent McKinsey survey, only a small fraction of the value that could be unlocked by advanced-analytics approaches has been unlocked – as little as 10 percent in some sectors. This is partially driven by the fact that many companies take a field of dreams approach to data platforms – “If you build it, he will come”. To scale the impact of data analytics across the enterprise, companies should instead adopt a flywheel approach to focus on use cases and total cost
Data is an asset. But it is also a liability. Data quality issues, when not managed correctly, would become a critical enterprise risk. KPMG’s 2016 Global CEO Outlook reported that 84% of CEOs were concerned about the quality of data that they based their decisions on. However, there are 7 inconvenient truths of data quality that if ignored, it will make companies’ data quality improvement initiatives much more difficult to generate impact. Companies should proactively address the fundamental root causes and design necessary changes accordingly. Data quality improvement projects are one of the top 3
For tech-empowered companies, a new set of metrics are required to measure the outcome of technology investments and evaluate if the foundation is sound to enable companies to continue to evolve with technology advances. Current commonly used IT metrics won’t suffice for those companies. When I met the CEO of a major $100+B healthcare company for the first time, he asked me these questions: “Parker, how should I think about IT? I don’t even know what metrics I should ask my CIO to measure himself, let alone for me to evaluate if the numbers are
“Technology doesn’t matter” – this was my opening when I was giving a “Future of IT” presentation to the IT executive team of one of the largest oil companies in the world.
The organization structure for most companies’ IT organizations hasn’t changed dramatically over the last 30 years. Most IT organizations have the following key roles reporting to the CIO…
One of the questions that consultants must always answer is how to win client work. Clients issue RFPs and they employ scoring criteria to select consultants. The scoring criteria are typically centered around technical competency and commercial arrangements. Clients’ procurement teams will lead the charge, score the vendors, and go through the selection processes.
To make technology matter more, companies need to understand the underlying drivers for the magnitude of achieved technology impact. Having worked with many organizations across the world on similar topics, I have designed a formula to illustrate how to amplify the technology impact, i.e., how to make technology matter more.
To truly be able to deploy technology across all facets of the business, companies should explore the 7 habits of Tech-Empowered Companies and embark on a journey to transform themselves. As Marc Andreessen famously said in 2011, “software is eating the world”. Technology is becoming an essential part of every industry and every business. More and more companies are making the statement that they are becoming a technology company.
As technology becomes the driving force for companies across industries, more and more CEOs are viewing technology as a core part of their top agendas. In the meantime, many companies are still struggling to raise the profile of technology within their companies.