There’s no question that being able to move quickly is an asset to modern businesses. Striving to shift and adapt with the market – adopting what’s known as a transformation mindset – can lead brands out of the pandemic into whatever comes next.
So, in this changed and changing environment, how can leaders use technology to build a transformation mindset and take their business to the next level? SAP’s innovation principal, Des Fisher, shares his insights.
1. Recognise that you need change to grow
New research from SAP reflects midsize business leaders’ continued focus on growth. While the need to increase revenue is not new, the study shows a shift to finding different, better ways to achieve this, for example through sustainability and improving the customer experience.
Fisher says the pandemic highlighted what was already true: that businesses must be poised to adapt if they are to succeed. They need to be not just willing to adapt, but enthusiastic about it – and must have the internal resources and culture to support change.
“Covid was a profound realisation event,” he says. “It forced everybody to realise they must immediately start doing things differently. Not when it suited them, but right now.”
Post-Covid, businesses will attribute their long-term success to their success in transformation, focusing on being agile and nimble enough to roll with the punches. “They might be asking: ‘What happens if the supply chain tanks? How do we broaden our supplier base or better interact electronically?’ Alongside that, there is a push to engender resilience, to ride the bumps.”
But it is curiosity, Fisher says, that really encourages strong growth. “Organisations that have curious employees are going to question why they are doing things … and then transform to do them better. They have an appetite for challenging the status quo.”
2. Harness the power in your data
A transformation mindset can only lead to successful transformation when it combines decision making with evidence. Knowing what’s happening in every part of the business is critical to being able to act quickly without compromising success.
“The value in being data-driven is when multiple parts of the organisation understand a decision,” Fisher says. “Most critical thinkers will say, don’t just do something, think about the upstream and downstream implications.”
Pulling a lever in one part of the business has an impact on every part of its performance, and successful transformation relies on predicting those impacts. “Having data that spans multiple parts of the business, and being able to understand the impact of changes, is profoundly useful,” Fisher says.
A business office with a number of employees working at computers while listening to a colleague talking and reviewing some data on wall mounted monitors. Photograph: Tom Werner/Getty Images
With 34% of midsize companies looking to introduce new products or services, and 34% wanting to grow through increased sustainability, Fisher points out the need to have everyone talking to one another, from manufacturing and procurement to finance and HR. “The better connected between your organisational units, the better that data-driven decision making is going to be.”
Platforms such as SAP allow businesses to leverage their data by using it to make the right choices. But having access to insights is only part of the puzzle: the best results are a combination of data mining and human problem solving.
“You can ask machines to be hypervigilant because they can run all the time,” Fisher says. “It means humans don’t have to be on the hunt for insights all the time. They can take on a decision-making capacity instead.”
3. Use technology to its maximum value
It’s innovation in technology, Fisher says, that will allow humans to make these decisions. As innovation principal, he is keenly invested in the incredible things technology can achieve. “It’s getting so much closer to human,” he says. “Things are genuinely innovative, in the sense that we almost don’t need people to be doing what machines can do.”
Businesses will never be able to collect every single piece of data, Fisher says. But between what technology can provide and how a human being can interpret it, businesses will find the sweet spot for transformation. “You can infer,” he says. “You can ask technology to fill in the gaps.”
Prediction, inference, sentiment and processing natural language are examples of what humans can offer to build on what technology is providing, Fisher says. With the data in place, analysts and thought leaders can identify opportunities to grow, minimise risk or increase efficiency, knowing the evidence supports their choices.
“If you’re not embracing technology, you’re missing a trick. We’re now asking humans to do less of the manual work, and instead to take responsibility for technology in the day-to-day.”
Cloud computing “democratised” technology for businesses of every size, Fisher says. Tools and services that were previously only available to large companies are now easily – and inexpensively – accessible to small and medium-sized enterprisess looking to grow their use of tech. With a platform such as SAP, that can include automation across every aspect of the business, including invoicing, logistics, payroll and e-commerce.
Most importantly, he says, technology frees up time for humans to do what they’re really good at: dreaming big.
4. Encourage your team to embrace transformation
“If you’re going to be great, you need a good understanding of business and a great understanding of technology,” Fisher says. Being able to apply innovation to problems is the pathway to creating new and better ways of doing things.
“If an organisation doesn’t let its employees explore their personal purpose, in the context of making revenue, they won’t have their attention. Those employees will just do things because they have to. People should be doing interesting and innovative things because they want to, and because they know they’re creating something better in the process.”
With the right technology in place, an organisation’s people have the chance to tap into what’s most important, without waiting for permission to think differently. “There becomes almost a personal responsibility to wonder: ‘Why are we doing this? I feel like we could do this another way.’”
Fisher believes the secret is to balance the goals and principles of the organisation with the passions of its employees.
“Create a beautiful, cerebral mix of both of those things, and when you add technology you’ll be surprised by what you can achieve,” he says. “What role does innovation and technology play in innovation? It’s leading it.”
