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Enabling ‘Innovation Squads’ to Drive Game-Changing Growth

by Celigo
July 13, 2022

Editor’s Note: This article is a guest post by a cloud-consulting firm that helps organizations optimize and streamline processes through planning, Big Bang. With headquarters in Montreal, Canada, and offices in France, Mauritius, Toronto, and the United States, Big Bang aims to serve enterprises of all sizes and industries worldwide.

In the IT world, the one thing that never changes is that everything changes all the time. Evolution and innovation are at the core of this industry and go hand-in-hand. Every day brings new opportunities for businesses to grow and develop their full potential. Your business needs to be prepared to manage change efficiently and seamlessly.

Change Management and Innovation

In all organizations, it’s important to understand the interaction between people, processes, and technology.

  • People: Who is your target user impacted by the change, and what do you know about them?
  • Process: Which processes are impacted by a specific system, and what could be optimized?
  • Technology (systems): Which systems are at play, and how are they communicating?

Once you understand these three aspects and ensure they are balanced and work in harmony, you can move forward confidently with less chances of user adoption problems.

How Big Bang Conducts Business Process Reviews

Big Bang has a straightforward 3-step approach to business process reviews (BPRs).

The first step is to evaluate our client’s business processes to find the correct solution for a business. Through analysis sessions with our clients, we ensure that we clearly understand how the company works and what processes are in place.

The next step would be an in-depth technology analysis. For the product to be effective, it’s vital for businesses to fully leverage the out-of-the-box processes along with a plan for when they will outgrow them. Because cloud-based SaaS evolves, it is generally accepted that these features and functionalities are easiest to maintain and, when well leveraged, can streamline operations by avoiding unnecessary customizations. Such personalizations require continual attention and maintenance, thereby stunting short-term growth.

However, many businesses outgrow their out-of-the-box system, and customizations become inevitable. This is why technical analysis is crucial; defining the pain points and limitations of the current technology and grasping the larger system architecture in place will allow for proper recommendation and implementation of a new solution that is better adapted to a company’s growth trajectory.

The last step is assessing needs and making a business requirement list (BRL), which includes all the pain points discovered during the previous stages, in order of priority and business area. This will guide the implementation team throughout the project to ensure every need is covered.

Types of Architecture for Information Systems

All cloud systems serve a common purpose: to scale your business and automate its processes. However, there exists 3 different types of system architecture that can be implemented depending on your organization’s size and needs:

  1. Single System: one system that manages all processes and all data in one place. This one is best for smaller organizations.
  2. Best-of-Breed: multiple systems connected together through integrations and iPaaS connectors like Celigo. This is the best solution for bigger businesses with many departments that have different needs but still need to communicate with each other and have a seamless flow of information.
  3. Hybrid: a mix of both previous architectures where one or a few departments or functions runs on a different platform than the balance of the organization.

Whatever is selected, the most important part is proper integration and flow of data, so all people in the organization have access to the same information, no matter where they are searching for it.

Important Reminders with Innovation Changes

In our presentation at Celigo’s inaugural Transformational IT Summit, we discussed some key questions to ask yourself when forming your innovation squad, a task force for driving growth through innovation :

  • What is the priority internally to support innovation?
  • How do employees and leaders embrace change?
  • What frequency does your innovation occur?
  • What budget is available for innovation?
  • What is the role of the IT department in innovation?
  • How will innovation in one department impact the company as a whole?

It is important to remember that every organization is different when managing change and innovation in digital transformation. What one company was able to achieve might not be fitting with your own business goals, capabilities, resources, or strategy.

Keeping your end goal in mind and always returning to your original priorities will prevent you from comparing where you can’t compete. Instead, this will help you evaluate your business and ensure you implement an innovation strategy tailored to your specific needs.

Knowing how much your business is willing to risk and sacrifice for the innovation process to come to term is crucial. Do you have enough capacity internally to afford the risk that comes with innovation? If the answer is no, you might want to reevaluate your plan to ensure that your team and your business can handle the change.

Ultimately, if you’re going to use a third party to help you implement the innovation, choose a partner you can trust who has experience in this field, like Big Bang. It’s critical for this partner to understand your business processes, so they can provide you with the guidance and support you need for a seamless transition towards growth.

Takeaway

All in all, growth and innovation are tied together. If you want your business to prosper, you must make sure it is leveraging new and improved processes. Keep in mind that innovation takes time and comes in various shapes and forms, which is why each company has to decide its path of innovation.

Assess your business requirements, create an action plan, and ask yourself the right questions.

Innovation can help your business reach new heights with the right tools, guidance, and preparation. Are you ready to take the leap?

If you are looking to get started Big Bang’s No BS Workbook can be a source of inspiration for your organization.

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