Business Transformation

For decades businesses have been going through some kind of change. Consequently, there has been many monikers or terms used during the years.

The BUSINESS VALUE GROUP’S perspective is that it doesn’t matter what type of change it is, or what it is called. It might be incremental change, evolutionary change, transformational change, a turnaround, a restructure or re-invention etc. What is most important is that the orientation and approach be appropriate for what the business needs.

Given all the recent climate disasters all over the world, there is growing push by society for us all to take better care of the planet. This applies to governments, nation states, businesses (large and small). It even applies to us as individuals living in this massive interconnected and interdependent ECO system. ESG (Environment Social and Governance) and PRI (Principle for Responsible Investing) and the UN SDGs (Strategic Development Goals) are three of the most significant drivers of change for the next few decades.

BUSINESS VALUE GROUP has been involved in driving large scale change projects for the last 2 decades. We have been working on sustainability related activities wherever and however we can since the 90’s. Sadly in many cases battling vs shareholder only driven mindsets slowed progress. To keep giving us hope we also supported bottom of the pyramid (social benefit) projects globally on a pro bono basis. But there is an upside. Since 2016 as well as helping drive transformational initiatives we have been developing BVG’s proprietary Capability Maturity Model, (CMM) with a sustainability orientation. (Pathway — Business Value Group (bvgintl.com)) There are always 4 levels on our CMM models and what we encourage is companies to do an honest self-assessment with a score and let that be the base to build from.

Then, once leadership is aligned on where the company is, we begin the change discussions. We enable dialogue around change within organizations in a safe and transparent manner. By often begin by asking the CEO, executives and key contributors about the impetus that is behind the need for this Business Transformation. We also explore the cost/risk of doing nothing as well as the opportunity that lies ahead if the change is successful. These discussions become the alignment anchors and the source of motivation.

We often speak about the differing types of change for calibration purposes. The change type model above is what we use for that.

In the model above, the Y axis represents the source of control or pressure. Does the management team have control (internal) or is the pressure and control coming externally. e.g. a new investor, a massive market shift or a seismic climate change shift.

The X axis represents the scale of the enterprise, the scope of the change and axis Y2 covers the complexity that exists within the organization. e.g. subsidiaries, multiple lines of business etc.

Up and to the right is the highest risk and bottom left is simpler and lowest risk. There is NO perfect box or grid to categorize the type of change. However, there MUST be a conversation about the nature of the change that can inform a risk adjusted plan. That is part of the work that the BUSINESS VALUE GROUP does.

BVG Change Model Fail Modes

Every change model has significant risk and requires strong leadership. Listed below are the most typical fail modes encountered if one misses a step or doesn’t manage things well in the change process.