By Charlie Voller Barnes, Head of Solutions
Charlie is an experienced leader who has guided several companies through start-up, scale-up, pivot, and growth stages. She joined Amdaris in 2022 to expand solutions, product and consultancy offerings, with a focus on empowering clients to find optimal technology solutions.
Are you planning for a digital evolution journey? Whether it’s your first time or you’re a seasoned trekker, you don’t have to go it alone… but you do need a plan. Having the right team in place and knowing where to look for advice or directions can not only make for a smoother route, but also a more enjoyable journey. All of this can be achieved by effective planning.
While it’s tempting to jump straight into focussing on your destination, it’s often more important to understand and articulate why you’ve chosen this as your goal. Why are you heading there? What outcomes will this achieve for your business? What value will this bring to your customers or users? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you understand if you’re headed for the right destination, and whether your business is aligned on the reasons why you’re headed there
Where is your starting point?
Before considering the specifics of any journey — where you’re going and how to get there — you need to first understand where you’re starting out from. What does your current technology landscape look like? How are your business-critical tools interconnected and dependent on each other? How does your data flow and your team communicate? What are your options for the path ahead? Not only will answering these questions inform you whether your intended destination is a feasible goal for you, but also inform you of the people and tools that you will need to get there.
And the chances are that there’s more than one path to your destination. There might be a course that looks a lot smoother, but just like with any journey, you need to be prepared to handle bumps along the way. Setting a strategy from the beginning is important, but you need to be willing (and able) to divert and change path if needed. You need to be comfortable with an Agile methodology.
Preparing your team for the journey
Being comfortable with where you are and where you’re going is just part of the challenge. An evolutionary journey inevitably means a great deal of change across your business. For some this is exciting (typically those involved or driving the change); but for most this is daunting, partly because they’re being taken along on a ride that they have no control over.
Share with your organisation what it means to take an Agile approach and to have a product mindset. Communication is key. The thought of telling everyone that you’ve changed course when the journey is already underway can be scary, but remember that you can’t know everything up front and the ability to adapt is your key to success. Explaining this and the impact your diversions are having will allow those on the journey to feel comfortable and confident in your navigational skills. Journeys are tiring, but they’re made much easier with people cheering us on.
Evolve together
When people hear phrases like ‘strategy and consulting’ some imagine pinstripe suits steamrolling into the building, bossing you around and then leaving a large bill. It doesn’t have to be that way. A consulting partner (emphasis on partner) should understand your business and be able to work with your team to guide you on the best route for your specific journey. They bring lots of experience from their previous adventures. Oftentimes people and businesses won’t stop to question what they’re doing and why; they do things because that’s the way they have always been done. Taking time to get an independent view could save you time, money and more importantly goodwill along the way.
Your next big step
Whatever your next big step is, and whether you decide to do it alone or with a partner, it’s crucial to realise the role strategy has to play in the process. The sooner businesses learn that getting to where they need to be is more comparable to a pilgrimage than a quick walk to the shops, the easier the whole process becomes for everyone involved. It can be daunting seeing how far you need to travel to reach your destination, but if you can confidently check in for directions along the way, surely that would make the whole process easier? If you take away nothing else, remember that obstacles obstructing your path should be expected. Don’t throw in the towel at the first sign of adversity. The sooner you are able to adopt the aforementioned Agile mindset, the higher your chances are of being able to steer yourself back on course after hitting a diversion.
And remember, wherever you are on your evolutionary journey, you can count on Amdaris to be an enthusiastic travel partner, whether that’s enlisting our help for a technology health check, or simply seeking advice from our Evolution: Encoded content campaign. You don’t have to go it alone.
Need to Get Digital Innovation Ready? Book your Amdaris Digital Health Check
The Amdaris Digital Health Check provides a comprehensive, unbiased assessment of a company’s technology approach, giving an objective view on how well you are setup for advancing your strategic aims.
You will learn how to:
- Identify capabilities
- Uncover risks
- Discover opportunities
- Recommend best-practice mitigations
Arrange a short introductory discussion:
To speak to an expert solutions consultant about whether a Digital Health Check might accelerate and improve your strategy, complete the below form. A member of the team will be in touch to arrange a time that works for you.