In the last two parts of the Business Enablement series, I introduced the Business Enablement Service Framework (BES), wrote about its evolution, and compared it with existing well-understood industries like Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) and Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO).
Now that you have a better understanding of what led to the emergence of Business Enablement Services and its specific features, in this article we will see who may need Business Enablement Services and what their benefits are.
Understanding the Dimensions
Business Enablement Services is all that an organization does to ensure alignment between their strategic transformation goals and their day-to-day operations as well as manage the operational overhead that strategic projects create. Typically, Business Enablement Problems are not unidimensional but have a lot of underlying dimensions. It is critical not only to understand each of those dimensions with respect to the problem but also the interplay of these dimensions.
Initial Assessment to Plan a Strategy
Imagine you are a business function head who is working with an advisory on a transformation project. The objective of this project is to make the governance of your function more metrics-driven. The advisory has done an as-is assessment of your current state and laid out a strategy to reach the future state.
Based on their experience, they have given you recommendations for the metrics that you should monitor for your sub-function and the structure and frequency of your new governance program. You have set up a team that oversees the implementation through.
Everyday Tasks that Might Slow Down the Transformational Project
This team now has additional work on these projects apart from their day-to-day job. Few though not all, are listed below. Some of this work is very specific and detailed and requires effort or hands-on time – but critical to the success of your transformation project.
- What is the existing data that is available?
- What is the process of getting that data generated?
- What to do about the metrics that are across sub-functions?
- How distributed is the data or is it all available in a consolidated environment?
- What should be the various sub-steps in this governance process, and who is accountable for each?
- What is currently being monitored so that we have a baseline vs. what is a new metric?
- What should be the process of generating and maintaining this new metric?
- How will the monitoring happen?
- What about the data that is not being captured now?
- How do you train people and create, store, and maintain knowledge documents for all to refer to about the new process?
The list can go on and as we look at each aspect it will open more questions that need to be addressed to move forward.
BES Unburdening the Project Team from Extra Operational Efforts
Businesses all the time are running a myriad of transformation projects. Transformation projects are not a sprint but a marathon, and more often, they add operational overheads in the short term before showing any value in the long term.
The burden of the extra operational effort can be reduced by using Business Enablement Services. Vendors that are providing this service move between the strategic and tactical stages seamlessly and partner with the different stakeholders in the transformation ecosystem, thus ensuring that the teams’ time is most effectively used.
Every Business function head knows what they need to do to align their operations with strategic goals to create operational efficiency. They all have top 3-4 things in their mind that they want to work on. Most companies, however, are constrained by a lack of resources, a lack of talent, and the pull of other priorities. It is called the gap between knowing and doing, and Business Enablement Services helps fill the gap.
So, if you are a function head and have been meaning to create more value for your function by not only maintaining your day-to-day operational whirlwind but also effectively contributing to your organization’s goals, then Business Enablement Services is for you.
How Do Business Enablement Services Help?
Here are a few pointers that reflect on the fact how Business Enablement Services help project teams deliver transformation projects with efficiency:
- Uses the right combination of data, digital and human expertise to solve operational problems and get them ready to absorb the benefits of your strategic goals.
- Helps you prioritize and execute the variety of operational effort that results from such projects in the short run.
- Aligns your operations to the proposed outcome of your strategic transformation projects, thus ensuring the success of your transformation projects.
- Provides the flexibility to scale up or down to meet your specific business and technical requirements.
- Helps manage the operational whirlwind of activities that keep your business running every day.
- Allows your team to deliver more to your stakeholders and increase the customer service experience.
- Creates bandwidth for your team and works with them to create future capabilities.
What and How DefineRight Contribute toward the Success of Transformation Projects
The Business Enablement Services at DefineRight form a permeable, flexible layer between your strategic goals and day-to-day operations, partnering with the different players in your ecosystem. Leveraging the right people, process, technology, and data help with the last mile operationalization of your organization’s goals.